Angels Dark and Dumb

Having a Proud Artist Moment

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Finished another Lady of Horror this week. Fatso is a character in the Casper movie released in 1995 that includes Christina Ricci as one of the main characters. Fatso is in drag as Amelia, her deceased mother, to fool her father. Very very funny scene! I watch the movie every Halloween. Brad Garrett does the voice of Fatso perfectly! Interesting fact, Casper was “the first feature film to have a fully computer-generated visual effects character in a leading role.”

The Ladies of Horror series is a mix of feminine horror actors done in a Patrick Nagel style, although I kept the integrity of the character because Fatso wouldn’t look good without depth. I started these to better learn the Pen tool in Adobe Illustrator, and they’ve become an obsession. Now, with this one, I’ve mastered gradients…well kinda. If there’s a lady in a horror movie or TV show you’d like to see, leave her in a comment.

While this is my first try at a major use of gradients in Adobe Illustrator, I’m quite pleased with how it turned out. Can’t wait to start a new project with gradients! Not at all sure what I want to do, but I feel it should be something original. Maybe I’ll try the Grim Reaper, who is a character I’ve mentioned in a book I wrote awhile back but never published. I want to revisit the book as a graphic novel.

No news on Angels Dark and Dumb. The cover artist is still working on the updates, but she’s getting close. Until next week…

Hooked on Art

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Here’s this week’s artwork for ya. Did this piece, obviously titled Hooked, in my drawing class. I expect you can figure out the theme pretty quickly. We were assigned a line drawing of objects found around the house. Funny how these things evolve in my head because I remember walking around the house to find things. I had a big pile of stuff and had to pull out a theme. The only vice of mine represented here is the wine glass. Any other obsession or addiction is a contrary to my controlling personality, gambling and injecting drugs especially. In fact, I’m the one you want holding your money at a casino.

No news on Angels Dark and Dumb. The cover artist is still working on the updates and the new character drawing for Margery. What I can say is that they are coming along quite nicely. Otherwise, have a great week, and hopefully I’ll reveal the covers next week.

This Blog is Almost 20 Years Old

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Can you believe it? Almost 20? WOW! I had to go look up how long blogs have been around and found they started in 1994. That’s 10 years before I started this one. It was originally on the free WordPress site and then I created my own website. I tried a few other sites like Blogger, but WordPress has been my choice of website/blog tools most years.

Now that I’ve completely and totally bored you with technology talk, let me introduce this week’s artwork. This is called Drifting In or Floating In. Done for my Drawing I class, so it’s a photo of an old school piece that was done with ink and black watercolor. I don’t remember the exact assignment though. I think it had to do with foreground and background landscapes.

Unfortunately, there is a delay on the release of the new editions of Angels Dark and Dumb. Going day-to-day at the moment, still working on the new, improved covers. Until further notice, Warrant for Damnation will remain free upon request. While it is more than worth the wait for the new covers, I’m starting to feel like a kid at Christmas. LOL! At my age, I guess it’s a good thing.

The only other big news is that I finished the blog post I mentioned a few weeks ago about remaking the Angels Dark and Dumb. The Remaking of a Fiction Series and Why You Should Consider Remaking Yours is live on the ArmLin House blog, which is my media company’s website. You will find it particularly interesting if you are also a fiction writer.

That is all this week…talk to ya next week…

I Can’t Stop Thinking About Zombies

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Yep, I got zombies on the brain. That’ll tell you how much I love them. Could also be because I started reading Do Zombies Dream of Undead Sheep?: A Neuroscientific View of the Zombie Brain by Timothy Verstynen and Bradley Voytek. So far it’s blowing my mind on how the brain works. I also did the collage to the right recently. Lots of fun and one of my favorites so far.

Very exciting news on my Amazon followers. I have 44. Okay, not so impressive, but if you had asked me before they added the number to Author Central, I’d have said I likely have only 3. I guess they added it a while back, but I just learned about it. Forced me to also spend some time there, updating my author profile. I’m not a huge fan of the new look and feel of the author pages though. Oh well.

And speaking of being an author, book covers are still in the works for the first 3 books. Everything else is ready to go. Trying to make sure I meet a May 15th release date. Still giving out Warrant for Damnation for free if you want it. Go to the Contact page to make a request.

Have a great week!

Run the Gauntlet

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This is all I got for ya this week. It’s an old perspective assignment from my Drawing I class. Also happens to be the hallway to my bathroom, minus the holes and knives of course. My favorite part of doing this drawing was finding the mix of handles for the assorted sharp objects.

Next week I should have book covers. Hopefully all the books in Angels Dark and Dumb will also be published/republished. I’m also writing an informative blog post for the ArmLin House Production blog on the remaking of a book series. So far, I’ve acquired the experience of changing my author name from W. J. Howard to Winnie Jean Howard along with changing the series name, two things that kinda make it time consuming to publish. It’s also taken me way too long to write each of the books. Oh yeah, and my experience with way too many publishers for book 1. Blah blah blah…forever complaining about this series. Truth is I like to do things the hard way.

Saw the new Evil Dead Rise this week too. I give it an average review. As I would, I really wanted more comedic moments. Thing I liked most about the movie was the dark and dreary atmosphere and setting. High budget, so of course the special effects were done well. Not gross or shocking enough for me, but good mainstream horror movie.

Enjoy your week!