Pages 153, 154, & 2 Videos at Connecticon 2015

I am sorry, but I have been very busy as of late, though I have been snowboarding and watching Game of Thrones as of late.

I have completed pages 153 and 154 of Zheph Skyre. I had also posted videos in between each weeks because these particular pages were taking a lot of time to complete. As you can see, I drew a lot of detail in certain areas.

Here are videos of Chris Canson and Laura Landa at the Press Junket at Connecticon 2015. These videos I recorded primarily for WCCA TV13. They were really cool guests.

Here's page 153. As you can see, Zheph is not moved by Jahovac's anger and threats. He is focused on trying to get Vanessa back from the dragon, but there is an awful amount of fear behind his eyes. We look back at when the dragon swallowed Zheph whole...

Here's page 153. Zheph was swallowed by the dragon, and it should not have been unexpected to find that he was not the only thing the dragon had recently devoured. He was lucky enough not to have been burned alive or chewed up before entering the dragon's stomach, but as we already know, that did not work out for the dragon in the end.

So now Zheph is going to try to search for this lost treasure the dragon wants. Will he be able to find it? Will the dragon truly spare him and Vanessa if he does bring it...?

Flora at WAM 2015

Worcester Art Museum's Flora in Winter was this past week from Thursday January 29th to Sunday February 1st. It was quite busy at the museum, but not as busy as the previous year which was not as busy as the year before that. It appears that the majority of people who have seen Flora in the past believe it is the same exact thing year after year. That is not the case, as different arrangements are made in different areas of the museum. It is impossible to create the same exact floral arrangements year after year, so why bother. For those who missed out on this event, you missed something special.

Though the museum had no reason to charge an extra $6 for admission every day of this event. Sure there are more people who come for Flora than normal days, but clearly the increase of price does not attract people. Besides, the museum doesn't pay the amateur florists for their arrangements. They did it for publicity in hopes of getting business with the target audience.

Here is the Flora bust with the arrangement around it. In honor of the Higgins collection coming to the museum, we incorporated knights with this and a few other floral arrangements.

Here's a floral arrangement in the cafe.

Even the bathrooms have been decorated with floral arrangements by professional florists.

I know a good number of women would enjoy flowers in the bathroom, but there aren't as many men. It is too bad both genders weren't be able to see both floral arrangements during normal museum hours.

As usual, there were floral arrangements on the Renaissance court balcony.

This one was pretty by Mugford's Flower Shoppe...

And so was this by Seed to Stem, except for the fact that they used a stuffed fox in the arrangement. It is one thing to use bones of an animal since it has been dead for quite some time, but stuffed animals were hunted down just to be stuffed as some sort of perverse trophy and decoration. It makes me sad to think about.

Here's a floral arrangement by Jackie Potenzone for "The Christ of Saint Gregory." Birds of Paradise are a very interesting type of flower.

Here's a floral arrangement by Gianna Thoma for "Modello for the Assumption of the Virgin." I really liked the swirling, metal rack that was used to hold up these flowers.

Here's a floral arrangement by Lois Frampton and Deborah Dowson for the painting "Smiling Young Man Squeezing Grapes." I really liked how they managed to get flowers to float in what appears to be water.

Here's a floral arrangement for the painting of "St. Bartholomew" by Chrystal Paul and Helen Blazis. There is definitely some obvious symbolism here.

Here's a floral arrangement for the three Orantes statues by Michele Landes. Bamboo adds a certain look to floral arrangements that makes them interesting on certain levels.

Here's a floral arrangement for the large basin with five dragons in the Chinese Jades and Pottery Gallery by Robin Whitney. I love the jade basin, but the flowers do not nearly give it the defining presence the bowl itself has. Perhaps the floral arranger could have used flowers that were more waxy than soft.

Here's a floral arrangement for the sculpture of Buddha's head by Minal Akkad. I did like this one.

Here's a floral arrangement for the statue of Hapidefzl in the Egyptian gallery by Sally E. Jablonski. It is interesting what she did since the statue has no color.

Here's a floral arrangement for the relief from the tomb of Lady Francesca de Lasta by Julie Lapham. Again, this was another piece with no color.

Here are two floral arrangements that were in the Salisbury Hall both from Danieison Flowers. The chair looked amazing!

Here's a floral arrangement by Mary Fletcher for "Jonh Bours." It is amazing how she managed to portray the brown velvet suit.

Here's a floral arrangement by Sandra Tosches for "Jeremiah Greene." This was designed as more of a traditional arrangement.

Here's a floral arrangement by Kathy Michie for "Venus at the Forge of Vulcan." It was interesting to see a floral arrangement in the Knights exhibit.

Here's a floral arrangement by Virginia Orlando and Candice Atchue for "The Hull." It is awesome how they used a large conch shell and a zebra's lower jaw bone to help portray this autopsy painting.

Here's a floral arrangement by MaryEllen J. O'Brien for "Laocoon." I really liked the sculpture, so I really appropriated this.

Here's a floral arrangement by Sarah Ribeiro for "William James and Elizabeth James." Interesting rectangular vases.

Here's a floral arrangement by Kim Cutler for "Girl Playing Solitaire." It is very serine.

This floral arrangement for the "Nayarit Model of a Ballgame" by Ken Bositis and Micheal Alien was dedicated to the upcoming Super Bowl. You could see on the scoreboard that is was predicted that both teams would be tied at 27 with 3 seconds left in the game forcing the game to go into overtime, but that was not correct. It was still pretty funny! There was even a tiny figure behind the stands peeing!

 Here are two floral arrangements that were in the Salisbury Lobby.

Page 152 is Up & Flora @ WAM is Coming

I have finished page 152 of my web comic Zheph Skyre. I do not know what it is about these past few pages, but I have gotten them done in time without a problem. Perhaps it is the fact that these pages have less details in them than other pages. I just hope I can keep this pace until I come to pages with much more details. By then I should have a computer tablet, and then perhaps the pages will come out sooner.

Zheph seems to be warming up to Jahovac, but it does not appear to be going the other way around. Zheph realizes Jacques is using Jahovac to get through to Zheph, specifically his blue prints. What sort of blue prints? We shall find out. Jacques and Jahovac seem to expect Zheph to help them with killing the dragon, but after the ordeal Zheph has gone through, I doubt anyone would want to face such a creature. Zheph is focused on getting the dragon the treasure. Jahovac is angered by that. Will Jahovac convince Zheph to help fight the dragon, or will Zheph fulfill the dragon's demands?

Flora is about to start at the Worcester Art Museum. Professional florists have already begun to bring in flowers and arrange them in very interesting ways. As usual, tomorrow the museum will be open until 8:00, but there will be a very expensive party beginning at 5:30. On Friday and Saturday the museum will be open until 8:00 as well, but on Sunday Flora will end at 5:00.

My Mom's Cousin Wayne Brink, Page 151, & Arisia 2015

I have uploaded page 151 of Zheph Skyre. It might have been a few minutes late the other night, but please excuse my tardiness. My mother's cousin, Wayne Brink, passed away last Friday January 16th, and I had attended his wake on Wednesday the 21st. Many friends and family had gone to Wayne's wake. He was a very active hiker/explorer of nature, a photographer, a Vietnam veteran, a professor at Quinsigamond college, a loving husband, an interesting father, and an eccentric friend. He lost his battle against multiple forms of cancer. My earliest memory of him was when he invited my family and I to his summer barbecue. He did not serve regular hamburgers, but served buffalo burgers. I ate a chewy, white meat from a shish kabob and was told afterwards that it was alligator meat. After that, my family was invited to his Swedish, Christmas Eve Parties he held at his house every year which had various, interesting Swedish dishes and ended with drinking glogg. I was a little skeptical of these things at first, but along with Wayne's friendly personality, it was always an awesome time. Christmas Eve will never be the same without him now. Here's to you Wayne, there are many people who love you and hope you are at peace now.

Here we see Zheph wake up from a deep sleep and recollection of years past, or at least up until a certain part... He awakens to find himself wrapped in bandages and taken care of by Jahovac. It is is a little  unexpected, but it makes sense in the end because Jacques hired Jahovac to capture Zheph to use him for his knowledge. Zheph is useless to Jacques dead. Jahovac doesn't seem to be too comfortable with this arrangement though.

Arisia 2015 was enjoyable. I did not sell nearly as much as I did previous years, but I got to eat a lot of free food and I went to my sister's condo, my friend's apartment, & the MFA while I was in the area.

Here's the business card of Theresa Mather. If you like fantasy art, you'll like hers. She does a lot of dragons, cats with wings, and other mystical creatures.

Another flyer for Nauticon 2015. I have signed up for the Artists' Colony at this convention, but I have no idea if I will get it or not. If I do, I will be sharing the space with Frankie Stevens, author of the book "Polarity Breach: The Divine Spark."

Here is a flyer for a Masquerade at the goth club, Haven, tomorrow night. It sounds interesting, but due to the incoming snow storm, it might be postponed. I do not believe I have a good enough costume for this nor much money to spend.

Another flyer for RavenCon, a sci-fi/fantasy convention in Richmond, Virginia. They are celebrating their 10th year!

Here's a flyer for Chessicon, a sci-fi/fantasy convention in Maryland. They did accept my artwork for this convention and I mailed it to them. I could not attend myself because it is a far drive for me, it was right after Thanksgiving, and I do not have much money to spend on a hotel.

Here is a pamphlet for artwork by Laurel Cunningham-Hill titled Capsulariums. It is artwork using tiny bones of rodents and displaying them in tiny frames or hollowed out chain watches. She makes some very interesting stuff! Don't worry, these are bones left from owls and are sterilized beforehand.

Here's a flyer for a new LARP called the Accord. It made me a little angry that their symbol looks way too much like the one I have on my portfolio site! I I'm trying not to let it get to me.

Page 148, 149, & 150 Are Up

Sorry I have not been updating this blog as often as I used to, but I am hard at work on this web comic story, I have been working on getting everyone their rewards for the Kickstarter, and lately I have been getting ready for the Arisia Art Show of which I will be attending this Friday.

Here is page 148 of my web comic. Zheph and his family appear to be set on leaving in this flashback. They appear to go through certain lengths in order to do so...

After such a terrible tragedy with their house being burnt down, the Skyre family appear to be optimistic as they leave Corthon behind, but Zheph appears to be having a hard time remembering what exactly happened after he left the city. He seems to be troubled with something.

I realized a while ago that the tear and sweat drops I had been portraying in my web comic have not been the best. I was simply trying to fill in the outline of the drops with a light, white fill. I knew that it made the water look milky, but I wasn't sure what to do instead. It wasn't until recently that I discovered a different method of portraying such water drops on people. I might go back into previous pages and make the same changes if I get the opportunity.

If you are wondering why the laughing speech bubbles are red and black, it is simply that the character or characters who are laughing are laughing maniacally and are not normal human beings.

Here is page 150. Zheph stands among many creepy eyes and smiles, but the largest are terrifyingly soul piercing!

I love this page! I decided to have this page as a double page with a single image because I wanted to portray just how intimidating this unknown force is. This page took quite a bit of time to complete and more layers than I thought I was going to use. I'm going to show this page at Arisia this weekend.

Page 146 & 147 are Complete, and Kickstarter has Ended!

The Kickstarter project I ran has ended, and I finally made the funds necessary to purchase a tablet to help advance Zheph Skyre as a web comic. I am going to try to send out the rewards for those who have pledged towards my project as soon as I can. It will require ordering a few more prints of certain pieces of artwork and purchasing frames as well.

Here is page 146 of Zheph Skyre. On this page I just wanted to show the aftermath of all the destruction that has occurred in just a matter of hours. There is a little bit of text in the first panel where Jahovac is dragging Zheph to his hideout, but the rest is silent. I wanted the numerous deaths and despair to sink in for the audience reading.

I started Chapter Five with a flashback to Zheph's childhood when his house had been burned down by a large, angry mob. It appears that they are going to leave Heartrogard, but if that is the case, why did Zheph return to such a depressing, ignorant city?

Kickstarter Optional Prize for Pledge

Here's a video explaining a new prize for my Kickstarter Project. I am also thanking people who have already pledged towards my project, and wishing them Happy Holidays.