Yeti/Lockhammer and The Pain of Being Dead 2: BALTIMONSTER

Here's a new painting I just recently finished. All digital again. Its a constant learning experience right now every time I work in photoshop. I recently picked up painter, so I'm going to try messing around with it soon, there will be updates when something of note comes out of that. Coming up, I'll also be starting work on a 36x48" oil painting. I'm super excited about that. I haven't seriously painted in oils since my freshman year at MICA, and even though I got into MICA with all oil paintings, I feel like I'm going to be learning the medium all over again. It should be fun/challenging/rewarding, which is the best way things should be.

Oh, I almost forgot! For those of you that havn't heard yet, my work is going to be on display alnong with a bunch of other fantastic artists in a show titled The Pain of Being Dead 2: BALTIMONSTER. The painting further up in this post, along with the Golden Yeh Rén and the Five Fingers of Olympus painting are all going to be up. Here's the info straight from the gallery's write up:

Pain of Being Dead 2: BALTIMONSTER ! Art show, live music and costume contest: Friday, October 24th, 8 p.m. at The Echo, 14 North Ave, directly next to The Windup. 14 North Avenue is a gigantic gallery space (with 6,600 white-walled feet!!!) directly next to The Windup on North Ave. Pain of Being Dead II: Baltimonster! is one of the first events to be held in this forthcoming exhibition and performance space. The only instructions contributing artists were given was, "make it monster." Come check out the mad resulting endproducts and hear some scary live music from The Survivors of Camp Crystal Lake, We Are the Seahorses, and Mr. Moccasin. Enter the costume contest, for best overall and best monsterfied Hon, and experience Halloween in a new space! DJs Action Pat and King Gilbert will be providing the spooktastic monster jams to kick your undead boots to. Artists include:
Brian Ralph
Alex Fine
Daniel Krall
Nolen Strals
Daniel Albrigo
Josh Sisk
Curt Eichelberger
Dan Janssen
Scott Archer
Jeremy Zombie
Ghostfreehood
Sam Bosma
Kevin Sherry/Squidfire
Rick Kercz
Toddfather
Kali Ciesemier
Jimmy Giegrich
Anthony Weber
Adrian Painter
Mark Kubat
Claire Painter
Justin Gilman & Tami Churns
Michael Anderson
John Dyer Baizley
Rich Marafioti
Monsterarm
Gus Bowman
Paigey!
Ramsay Antonio-Barnes
Rob Brulinski
Zachariah Bauer
Andrea Kalfas
Mike Riley
Brady Starr
Jereminus
Peter Goode
Sean of the Dead
Zachariah Bauer
Kishin

There will be an opening night of the show on Saturday, Oct. 11th where you can see the art and talk to the artists. BYOB on the 11th only.

And here's the flyer for the show closing. Complete with sweet illustration by Alex Fine.

The Golden Yeh Rén and Lobster Johnson

I know I promised these a little while ago, but here it is! New stuff! I've been working more and more with my wacom and its just been super convenient and enjoyable. Anyway, this first guy is a member of a tribe of ape-men called the Golden Yeh Rén. They live deep inside mountains near lava flows, and are the hated enemies of the Yeti. This was entirely digital, except for the sketch of that glove (read previous post for explanation). More on these guys to come in the future. He's super fun to draw and I already have some ideas I'm interested in persuing for other members of the tribe. This guy is the keeper of that long handled sword and glove. They're probably magical.




Up next is the finished front and side view of Lobster Johnson's turnaround. I'll probably eventually do a back view. That'll come whenever I feel like modeling him. I'm not to big on doing fan art, so spending a long time on something like this gets a little taxing. I really like him though, but its time for some new hotness to come out of the ol' creative juice factory.



It's pretty late now, and past my bedtime. In the future expect an update on the job situation, diploma status, a finished Hercules 3d model, and a painting featuring Willem Lockhammer from the Guild of Huntsmen. Its for a gallery show I'm going to be part of that opens in October. More on that later in the week.

Thanks for stopping by.


Zachariah Bauer

Sketch Explosion!

Hello! Its good to see you here! Its about that time that I post something on here to prove to myself that I havn't been sitting around doing nothing since my summer classes got out. One thing that I have been doing a fair amount of is sketching! The images that follow are just that. Hooray!
This is one of the many spreads I filled in my sketch book of Lobster Johnson drawings while I was trying to figure out just how I wanted him to look. This is the drawing that pretty much set it in concrete, as you can hopefully tell by the speech bubble.



This here is one of the sketches I did recently for Hercules. I'm planning out another painting to do based more on the story this time. We'll all have to wait and see when that piece gets its turn at being painted.



My favorite cowboy monster hunter, Willem Lockhammer! I'm going working a lot more on him and his story in the coming months. I also have a friend thats going to be helping me blast out some stories for to be made into comics. Yeah, I'm pretty pumped about that. A full line of character concepts will be blasted out before that happens though. They should be around in the somewhat near future, after I get some other things done.



This is just a Viking that decided to stop by and remind me that I had to watch Good Will Hunting for class the last weekend. Worry not, it was watched, and a paper was written on it. He was pretty fun to draw, and he, just like every other sketch in this post, isn't really finished due to my terrible judgement as to placement on the page. Moleskins are officially too small for me.



And lastly, a little sneak peak as to what piece I'm cooking up right now. This is just a detail sketch I did for the glove that this wild man is wearing. It looks way cooler in the painting. I still enjoy the sketch though. It's the only part of the painting done not on the computer. I'm enjoying Photoshop more and more now. Maybe it's due to my lack of room to paint, maybe it's because I like not having to spend so much time cleaning up afterwards. Or maybe it's because I finally feel like I got the hang of my tablet. Only time will tell.

I'll be posting the finished Lobster Johnson piece and something completely new, but related to that glove, some time at the end of next week. Untill then, stay gold.


-Zachariah Bauer



p.s. I almost forgot! Here's the finished version of that Superman sketch that I was working on before.

Lobster Johnson

Just a small update of what I've been working on so far for the Comicon competition before i go to bed. More to come in the next week. Everything is due on the 11th! I've got a lot more to do.

Edit: More progress!
Front view... done! Side view in progress still.

There's the Claw!

So I entered the Comicon Challenge over at gameartisans.org, my entry can be viewed here. I chose Lobster Johnson as the character I'd be redesigning/having fun with. For those that don't know hes a pulp crime fighter/paranormal investigator from the Hellboy/B.P.R.D. comics. He pretty much rules school. This is a cropping of the turnaround I'm working on. I have a bunch of sketches in my sketchbook that need scanning, but I'm currently on Karoline's laptop in the UMBC library and away from any sort of scanner. I'll post some of my Lobster sketches when I get near one.

Also, I've been working on the Hercules model a bit more when I have some free time from classes, their subsequent homework, drawing, and the ultimate time vacuum of night time video game relaxation. I'll post that also when I get back home. Until next time.

-Z Bauer

Keep on keepin on

Hey everybody. Just wanted to let everyone know I'm still working on stuff, and not just 3d. I had been thinking about this eskimo-type character for the Guild of Huntsmen comic for a while. I did some drawings, all of which were either bad, or worse. But during my art history class yesterday I noticed these two small ovals that had made it onto the page of my sketchbook some how and thought, "Hm that would be a sweet head to beard ratio." Exact words, i swear. And it turned into the head and goatee of the small guy on the top left. I finally did something i liked for this guy. I'm probably going to settle with the look on the right, or something close to it. A complete drawing will be posted whenever i get around to doing character mock-ups for everyone. I have someone thats going to help me write a story for a complete series. Its going to be epic. Yetis will probably be involved in some way.


This next drawing i did while sitting at the laundromat today. I was pretty upset with myself for not working on something for the project rooftop "Superman: Man of Style" challenge. So this is a quick, half hour in my sketch book drawing i did. Maybe I'll finish it? what do you think? The bottom of the drawing is the bottom of my sketch book, so it'll have to be finished digitally. Which would be sweet because I'd then have a good reason to get some digital painting time in. Yeah?

And lastly, an update on the Hercules model. The head is actually almost done again after a crash i had. It always seems to crash when i get into a modeling trance and forget the whole "saving your work" idea. Anywhoo, its a bit further along than this, but i don't have a more recent screen grab so this'll have to do for now. More to come later in the week, time for some literature class writing. Hooray!

Z Bauer out!

Back Yard Adventures

The pencils for my next comic for Sequential class are done! I'm pretty pleased with how they came out. Getting to draw Hercules beating up monsters, while having it relate to my childhood was a fun experience. The assignment was to do a comic based on something from our youth. And my youth consisted pretty much wholly of me and my brothers adventuring in the woods behind my house, stomping down ferns, and other such awesomeness. So I decided it would be perfect to do a comic about that. Maybe one day, if this Hercules project gets picked up this'll be some story about how when he was a kid he'd pretend to go on big adventures, and sure enough one fell into his lap when he grew up. I don't know though. I just wanted to draw him punching some stuff. And having an evil king get really pissed about it. I didn't want to worry about getting the likeness of me as a little kid, so i just came up with one that I thought would fit with the older Hercules.

The last line is, "Awww, porkchops again?!"

Here it is!

Let me know what you think. It'll be inked by friday, so excpect an update on that this weekend. Next week is coloring and inking it. Also for next week will be the last painting I'm probably doing for thesis. It's Camulos charging into a cave, sword drawn, beatin' up some fungus men. Its coming along, and its digital, and I'll post it once its done.

-Zachariah

Cold Feet Cover FINISHED

So I decided not to add the comic company logo and tag, and went back into the colors and text. This is the final version of the cover. I'm pretty happy with it. I'm really enjoying inking like this. I just wish I had the time to do a full comic, and not just 5 pages. Speaking of which!






So thats it, theres the five pages of my first comic ever. Its pretty much the most epic super short comic i know of. Tell me what you think, I would love some solid feedback on this.

Cold Feet Cover Color

The cover is almost done being colored. Tell me what you think, I'm going to add a fake comic company logo in the top left corner along with a price tag. Now to go spend some time on 3d Modeling


-Zachariah

Cold Feet Cover INK

Heres the G.O.H. title script, and an ink-in-process of the cover. i'm having a lot of fun with this one. it'll be done tomorrow.

GUILD OF HUNTSMEN sketch

So I'm working on a mock cover for my comic "Guild of Huntsmen." It follows a real cowboy named Willem Lockhammer and a Tibetan monk named Jampa Phosha as they attempt to rid a region of Tibet of it's Yeti problem. Right now its a quick 5 pages, which is a page more then what was needed for my sequential class, but it could easily be expanded to a full series. Jampa is never really introduced, he just kind of appears on the first page, I like him though, I would love to go into his background, and tell more of his special abilities.
Willem Lockhammer is a mysterious dude that rolls in old west style. Complete with two massive revolvers, which hes pretty good with, a bandanna around his neck, leather boots, and a sweet poncho, hes all you could want from the type of character he is. He doesn't wear a hat though, I had him with one for a good while, but then realized it would get lost pretty easy with all the monster fighting he'll be doing, so that got the nix and I gave him sweet goggles instead. Why does he have goggles you ask? Only he knows that. Maybe one day they'll come off, but that would mean something really bad happening. Like a town in Colorado being vaporized, or something along those lines.
Anyway you can see a snip-it of the comic on the left hand of that crappy picture taken from my cell phone. That bottom panel is super sweet, you just can't tell yet. but it is. I've started inking the cover already, All thats left is to finish that up, add some sweet hand lettered text, and color, and then it'll be done and everyone can read it. The whole maybe 100 words it is. There is a lot of panels though. And that makes me happy. Oh by the way, this is that first comic I was telling you about. In case you can't tell, I'm enjoying making comics.
The next one is about me when I was a little boy, pretending I was a mighty warrior- doing what you ask? you guessed it, fighting monsters and the like. I can't wait to draw it. It's going to involve some sort of shingle-horned nymph demon and maybe a golden apple and maybe a 100 headed dragon. We'll see how that goes.
I have a great deal of work to do leading up to Commencement. Besides this cover, the next comic, and my 3d character I've been continuously doing. Theres also another huge Hercules painting in which he will be fighting the Erymanthian Boar. Another Hercules painting which might turn into a cover image for the next comic. And a painting of Camulus fighting a bunch of swamp monsters. Thats just the studio work... But if I do a comic page a week, and a painting a week, I should be able to do it. Cheer me on, I'm going to need it.