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Black Ships Ate the Sky

I started this, thinking I was going to take an 8×10 pencil sketch and make a neat water-colory looking piece of it, or maybe just smooth it out and make some edits.

I began by making it 16×20 at 400 DPI, and then took to smoothing out all of my pencil grainy-ness. I chose this size, because I like my works to be high resolution, and my prints to be perfect – I also always consider that I might finish a piece, and then wish I had made it available much bigger.

The downside to working digital for me, is that can I zoom in to where I can see the individual pixels when it comes to detail… I begin just doing this for one part, then realize that the entirety of the work now needs to be in this ultra-high resolution – and set off on a journey of exploring a miles-square map of pixels for.. as long as it takes… in this case, over 300 hours I really did not have to spare. I think I spent nearly two weeks planning on being done “tomorrow”.

It was certainly a way to indulge though – as an artist these days, I don’t always get the chance to put so much work into one piece – though I do put a tremendous amount of work into every one comparatively.

From pencil sketch, to over 2 gigs of file size, hundreds of layers of painted elements, plus all the modification layers for overlay, lightening, darkening, color, multiplication, saturation, etcetera…

About a day or two in, I decided it would be a great idea to actually log the process for this one… and I saved a lot of progress pics.  Below, you can actually see the details of the finished piece. One thing with all of my paintings and other images: Web resolution will never let you see how packed with detail every inch is, or all of the interesting scenes, items, and mini-artworks semi-hidden throughout the painting.

Below that, I’ve added my progress pics – for people who are interested by such things.

Oh… if you would like to buy printings of this: There are giclees available in my store – There are also poster prints and photographic prints available at our Redbubble shop – Also in my DeviantArt account.

Image and details:


Progress Pics:


A rather rough sketch… these were quickies done for $25 a pop for bus fare a year or so back. The paper type really did not allow for erasing, so they were one-shot deals. I liked the concept and base layout enough, I thought I would do some digital work on it to make it print-ready.


A lot of steps went by before I realized it was going to be a much bigger project than I planned. It was the point where I was fleshing out this airship where I decided some screen caps would be good. I had started on the girl, switched to the airship, cut my pencil work out to its own layer, and placed other airships where I wanted them, as placeholders for the sake of layout.

I blacked out the girl for this stage, I didn’t want its pencily quality drawing my focus from the background I was working on.


head/face. This part took all of my night – so not much else has changed.


boots and leggy things… I put a lot of base work into this, then decided I would need to enlarge the feet, and widen and lengthen the lower legs. I write notes to myself whenever there is something important I want to hit first thing the next day… you’ll see these notes in other screen caps below.


The very beginnings of the holster and belt… I would later go in further, and further, sharpening up these details, then making details within these details… and sharpening those up. Oh, you can also see the base/beginning brushings of her stripey-pants.

… and done.

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The Black Ibis Tarot

The Moon

Bethalynne Bajema, my fiancee, co-conspirator, and occasional collaborator is working on her third eerie and beautiful neo-victorian Tarot deck “The Black Ibis” – and taking a different approach at her deck from the previous two in that she would like to have the deck published in one big run.

Being artists, and in this day and age where discretionary spending is at an all time low, being able to offer great things at low prices is essential.

Though the Sepia deck is very popular, with inquiries made every day about purchase, we are running that deck in very small runs (as our budget dictates), and for that reason have a higher asking price of $70 per deck. We would prefer to be offering them at $30, even less – because we’d like to have our art in the homes of everyone who likes what we are doing.

We would like to get this beautiful deck into the hands of *many* more fans and enthusiasts, make it more widely available, and maybe even go so far as to get bar codes and all that stuff that would allow for distribution… which requires a lot of printing setup fees and bulk ordering, the sort that is always way beyond our means.

Toward this end, she has set up a kickstarter fund. We need to raise $2,000 in printing and material expenses, and every dollar counts. She has set up many rewards for donations $5 and up, but what would be really amazing would be to receive a $1 donation from you, the reader.

People tend to feel that little amounts do not matter, that such gestures are unappreciated – but if even half of my 2,000 daily visitors pledged one single dollar, you and other contributors would have made a mark (and a damned good one) on art history by allowing an incredible artist to achieve her dream of bringing this project to life.

I know you’re probably thinking:

2000 other people? Well, that should all be taken care of then.

No… because most every one of them is thinking that exact same thing. Seriously. We get a *lot* of visitors and readers, we get a lot of email, we get a lot of people viewing images and galleries, we a lot of people downloading wallpapers, we get a number of comments, we get a handful of re-blogs (some of which even credit or link to us), we get a couple of twitter shares, we might even get a sale or two on a *really* good day… and that is generally the point where the world feels artists are well-rewarded for their work.

Here is a little-known secret: *You* are every bit as important in the art world as *any* artist. I’ve seen great and talented artists give up their dreams for a day job; I’ve seen *terrible* artists rise to the top. And if you are even a fraction as disappointed as I am in this, then you must know that artists live or die on support – not from hoity-toity self-appointed aficionados – or outlandishly rich philanthropists: but by real people, spreading links, making tiny donations, buying a print or two here or there… being involved, rather than being a bystander. You personally shape the future history.

If you would like to help out, be a part of the arts and of art history: be a part of this project, not an observer. Whether through sharing the link, or through donating $1 (seriously just $1 is AWESOME), *you* can make this happen (because all those other people are not even half as incredible). The link for her kickstarter fund is here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1835434564/the-black-ibis-project

Thank you,

Myke Amend