YIORA is an abstract strategy game based on a circular board of alternating dark and light spaces. Similarly to Chess, players alternate turns moving their pieces into a position to try and capture their opponent's "Overlord". With only three types of pieces available, the options are limited and sacrifices must be made. Especially since both players begin the game in a vulnerable position!

This game was developed for a comic I was working on in 1992, so it's been with me for a while. The intention was to create the board and a basic set of 2-player rules, but to keep it flexible enough to allow for multiple variations on the rules. For example, I also have rules for 3- and 4-player versions of the same game, as well as a 5-player game in which the players race around the board. There is also another series of games using the same board and pieces, which I called the "Garian Colored" series, where the rules and the object of the game differs based on the color of pieces chosen by the players.

The version I'm currently preparing to release will be a set of downloadable print-and-play pdfs, including one sheet each for black and white pieces, several sheets for the cut-and-assemble board, and a rule sheet for the basic 2-Player game. I'll be posting the alternate colored pieces and rules as additional downloads, and would like to even post up some seasonal variations from time to time. For now, take a look at the latest takes on the basic White and Black pieces:

Seven Little Monsters is an 8-page minicomic I created this year to hand out to any trick-or-treaters who come to my door (which, based on years past, should be next to none!). Click through to read the entire comic!

I think the real problem, when I come down to it, is that so much of what I'm working on (and trying to work on) has nothing to do with any of the projects I've already got started. For example, I'm writing a couple minicomics as an exercise to stretch some long-forgotten art muscles. The style is going to be fast, black-and-white texture work, similar to my Hansel and Gretel art, or the Li'l Minotaur mini I made a couple years ago. Quick, fun little comics. Also, I'm writing a pitch for a superhero miniseries based on a minicomic I was working on in high school. Not something I'd be drawing, I'm hoping to find an artist who can do it justice, and free me up to work on other things as well. I'm also looking at other revenue stream ideas and to that end I've been working on cleaning up a couple of old board games I designed years ago, one of which still hasn't been playtested, and I'm hoping to release them as print-and-play games, just like the Dol-Dai set that's currently in my store. See, none of these things really have anything to do with Ellie so it doesn't make sense to talk about them there, and none of them are completed yet, so they don't really belong in my portfolio either.

On top of all of that is the desire to have something good going up on my Google+ page fairly regularly, but I don't want to just be republishing stuff from my other sites. Or I don't know, maybe that's what I should be doing. Does it make sense that, if someone wants to find out what I'm up to, they should have to know to check three different sites? I'd rather they be able to just check the one main site, which, I suppose, should be this one. I suppose it would work fine to start talking more about works-in-progress here on this blog, posting finished art into the portfolio areas, and keeping all of my Ellie progress over on that site, with updates mirrored here.

I know, for most of you this is hardly earth-shaking. Many folks I know have maintained multiple livejournal/facebook/blogspot/tumblrs for years now with no problem interlinking them and being awesome at it. I guess I just have a little trouble compartmentalizing my work like that.

(Click the image for a larger view)

Overall, I'm happy with the shading and the coloring, though I wish the shading had gone more quickly - toward the end I felt I was rushing through a couple of the characters. It's an interesting technique, and bears more study and practice.

I'm hoping to have digital prints of this event poster available at the screening, though I don't know how much they'll cost.

Click to view larger!

A couple months ago, my internet-pal Jon Morris invited me to take part in a super-secret blog-project (blogject?) he was creating inspired by DC Comics' announcement to reboot their entire universe of comics with fifty-two new #1 issues, redesigned costumes, and modified origins. These 'New 52' titles were announced over the following couple weeks, and Jon got this idea:

Once DC started releasing the cover images of what the New DC Universe would look like, it got me wondering what the New DC Universe would look like ... if it were out of DC's hands.

I contacted a plethora of very talented - and very different - cartoonists with a simple challenge: If DC approached you and offered you any DC property - past or present - of your choice to be your own new ongoing part of the DC Universe, what would the cover to the first issue look like?

When I got the email from Jon asking me to participate, and asking which character I'd like to do, there was only one answer:

BLUE DEVIL.

As a huge fan of the original run of the character, with his down-on-his-luck reluctant super-hero ways, and goofy adventures that always felt a little like super-heroing but often had him dealing with magic and leaving him out-of-his-league, I was for years disappointed with attempts in the '90s and later to reinvent the character as a full-on demon, a magical 'tough' with a chip on his shoulder. So, with this opportunity to revamp the character in a form which I would actually read and enjoy, I absolutely had to bring him back to his roots:

(Click to see the full cover)

Here's Dan Cassidy, 20-year old electronics expert and special effects artist supreme, hired to design a prosthetic suit with some pyrotechnic bells and whistles, the main 'hero' suit for the reboot of the classic 'Blue Devil' monster movie franchise. The elongated legs of this demonic warrior give Dan extra jumping strength, and the gauntlets contain electronic circuits that allow him to control the 'Flames of Hell' that erupt on cue from his trident! But a mishap during filming opens a gateway to a REAL demon dimension, and Dan is exposed to a demonic curse that forever traps him inside his costume!

I'm really happy to be part of Jon's imaginary reboot, and thrilled to be the one to launch the site! I know there's some amazing artists lined up for the remaining 51 covers, and some fantastic characters that are getting the Fifty-Too! treatment! Go check it out today, and every day, for a glimpse at what SHOULD have been!

This pair of studies is me trying to design a character for a new project I'm working on. It's not for a comic, just a kind of art exercise, really. I did manage to channel my inner Rick Geary on this one, which is about the style I keep imagining this project working in. Does anyone else do that? Where you think of a project and then start trying to figure out what style of artwork you want to try to do it in? I do that with every project I do, which i think is a big part of why I have such a hard time defining a 'signature style' for myself. Ah, well.

Bonus points if you can figure out who this character is!

UPDATE! I've decided to cut the sale a bit short, it will now end on Dec. 20 instead of the 24th, mostly because I don't want to be having to ship stuff so close to the holiday, when it won't get there in time anyway. I'll resume shipping orders after New Year's, so if you want your stuff now, order soon!

These sketches were made during the performance with a simple ballpoint pen in a small digest-sized sketchbook I made for myself by stapling some copier paper together. Click the images to view them larger:

The first drawing of actual characters from the show, mostly just costume notes. Check out Hansel's crazy 'flailing arms' dance from the beginning of Act I!

The production is peppered with these massive paintings of open mouths, gaping hungrily. I'm still not sure if it's to represent the kids' starvation, or the witch's gluttony. Either way, pretty disturbing imagery. Also, these tree-headed guys were an excellent concept, though putting them into my final piece almost drove me mad.

A better drawing of the Sandman, and one of the oddly-proportioned Chefs that serves the children a feast in their dream of food. I spent most of this scene trying to figure out the shape of the head of that Maître d' Fish.

I was having a hard time paying attention to the story, so when this magical angel came out I thought it was supposed to be the witch. I also really liked the shadow being cast by this window cutout in the back of the set. On the right, you'll see more gaping-mouth imagery, this time presenting the witch's cake-shaped house, and finally the Witch herself. On the bottom there is probably the best drawing I got of her face.

I spent pretty much the rest of the show trying to get the witch just right. The fat makeup on the actor and his exaggerated facial expressions gave him this excellent maniacal look that I'm not sure I was able to quite capture in these sketches, but I think I finally got it right in the final piece.

So, that's it! All of this was used as reference when I sat down to draw my final piece, which can also be viewed during the run of Hansel & Gretel, which opens tonight! Lots of other artists also contributed pieces, and they can be viewed here.

I find that happens to me a lot. I'll have a flash of an idea, and high on creative fumes I'll jump in, inspired to do something flat-out amazing! But then, after a little while, the thrill disappears. Maybe the project is taking longer than I thought, maybe my inner critic starts to question the necessity of the project, maybe it's just not coming out as well as I'd hoped.

For a creative person, this is a very dangerous direction to be thinking in. Once I go down that road it's only a matter of time before I've given up on the projects I'm already working on since--again, why bother?--they'll most likely never get finished. And soon I won't even be coming up with new ideas anymore, having trained myself that it's not worth the energy. I need to break myself of this idea, to turn myself around and get to a place where completing projects isn't only more likely, but instead it's inevitable. I'm moving toward knowing that a project will be completed before I'm even finished planning it. And that is why, even though I don't have a plan for using them, I finally finished the McLiquorland Characters.

I've got fifteen (FIFTEEN) Ellie Connelly stories in mind, each one around 128 pages most likely. If I don't get on the ball and start finishing things, these stories will never have a chance to be told.