Sunday, June 08, 2008

Beasts!


This weekend I'll be done with a project that has taken the past year to complete. Many of you will probably be checking it out in a book coming out in the not too distant future. It began as an exercise, became an obsession, and soon it will be done. I'm finally going to be able to get back to color work, specifically colored pencils and painting, but the vast series of india ink creatures was a fun ride.

7 comments:

Luke P. said...

Is this the millions monster march thing?
It's been cool to see them progress. The more recent ones almost look like block prints, in a way. Are you getting more than one page for the BEASTS book?

Anonymous said...

wow thats great. congrats. I remember you started this back on the art dorks right? awesome

mostyn

Aeron said...

Mostyn, sort of, these have been played out across 2 series. The first was using black sharpie marker that ended at 666. I was kind of getting my feet wet with that one. This second series was all done with bottles of india ink and small paint brushes which is going to be numbered between 1,026 and maybe a few dozen more.

Luke, yeah those old 14th 15th century styled block prints have been a heavy influence on these.

Paleo said...

Congratulations Aeron, and while i'm sure it was a a fun ride, i know it was also a strenuous one, so, double congrats!

the thing about this project is that it can be replicated in a miriad formats ever anew, now they're appearing in this book,but after that, from the giant mandala idea to a 500 pages minicomic (a-creature-a-page)imagine everything inbeetween, you can ( and you should) make this thousand creatures live in a hundred different formats.

Aeron said...

Thanks David, and it's something I'm thinking about, a giant blotter acid styled poster is one idea. Another is a beastiary with a small paragraph describing the creature. This series was made to serve multiple purposes, one of which was to help me construct a vast array of life forms to populate my Hob Bob fantasy world. I'll be referencing the basic anatomical structures I've brain stormed in this series to use as a reference point and elaborate on in various characters in the Hob Bob story. I'd like to include all one thousand something of these creatures in the book. I know some will evolve into more continuous characters but others will pop up in a single panel, perhaps hiding in the background but there to be found. And this is reeally early to even think about but it would be fun to do a contest where if someone can identify so many of the creatures in the book, once it's out, they'd win.. something cool, a painting, something like that.

Jeffrey Meyer said...

You know, Aeron, this is a real accomplishment - not only the quantity, but the startling variety of forms you've conjured. It's pretty inspiring, man. Was it invigorationg to do? Was it ever tedious? Like, "Oh, have'ta come up with another one, geez."?

Aeron said...

Thanks Jeffrey, I wouldn't say it got tedious because at the heart of it all, drawing monsters like these is what I love to do most, but I was always wanting to move to other projects that I have piled up. Fortunately this had a deadline that helped keep me focused. The drawing part was fun, the digital arrangement is what's been driving me mad!