I Am Published

So I recieved an email today from a group that I studied a while back.

A couple of years ago, I had to do a study on an American Subculture for an Anthro assignment. Through some research, I became interested in the Vampiric subculture of America. It is actually what lead me into my artistic studies of the Steampunk subculture.

The Vampiric subculture is pretty obvious, so I won't explain it with entirely too much detail.

Here's me covering my ass:

During this study, I interviewed about 50 Vampires. Wether you believe them or not, they do, so for the purpose of cultural relativity, please don't even bother getting into discussions on wether or not they are real. Wether you believe that a man over 2000 years ago was half human and half god, or wether you believe that there are people that drink blood to survive, it's the same argument on faith and belief. I won't state my views purely for the fact that an Anthropologist merely observes and reports according to the standard scientific methods. My opinions, as a result, are absolutely beside the point.

Anyway, through my interviews, I drew many sketches to try and understand the views and spirituality of the two categories of vampires (sanguine, psivamp).

Well, I was approached by a leader of the Vampiric community, as well as a well-known author, to use my sketches from the study (as well as a tattoo design that I did for a friend) in a book that they are publishing. I was very happy to have the opportunity to do this, and recived royalty rights as well (after a nice 6 page contract).

So I will be published in a book called Dark Chrysalis. The book is a collection of vampire art, lyrics, poetry, and stories.


Hey, published is published!



It also gives me some street cred in this VERY SECRETIVE culture. According to one of my professors, I may be the first scientist to even remotely have the opportunity to infiltrate this culture in its over 50 year history.


I'll have an ISBN within a couple of days, and will be recieving a few copies of the book once it's off the production line. But I'll post these pictures here for everyone to see. Keep in mind, they were sketches done based on spiritual and theoretical conctepts held dear to the two seperate vampire communities.

This is the concept of Psivampirism. The collecting of life energy (much like that of Chi or Ki)


The hungering of a vampire is often compared to a strangling serpent.

Just a little tattoo design that I did for a friend a few years ago. She got it done, and also signed a release form for the use for this book.

So there you go.

See you space cowboy......

Mask: Complete

Well, after much much MUCH work on my mask, it is complete.

I only did the front mask as it seemed to promote the original concept without the necissity of the top mask. I may still make it, though, since I did like the design, and the molding is already complete.



So here's some pictures of the mask, and the process in which it was produced.

The original first design was scrapped for the second design. It was then molded with the copper eye in place.

It was cast in resin with the eye in place, then was (sadly) painted. I then removed the paint because it looked so bad to show the resin below. I then fabricated the forehead from copper, and filled it in with resin. I then fabricated the copper along the cheek and to the side of the chin.

I then fabricated the handle for the mask from copper, with a domed brass end to reflect the brass screws and bolts used for stability, structure, and accent. I used a peel-type embossing method to emboss the spiral on the handle, and also etched it with a motif held common throughout all of the copper on the mask.

Explanation of the Piece:

This piece is my attempt of blending my two primary disciplines: Anthropology and Metalsmithing. The mask is supposed to be similar to those used by shaman to tell stories and to perform rituals of healing. The mask itself is called "The Contemporary Shaman Mask of the Healer" because of its significance. It represents the mask that would be adorned by what is considered to be a healer in contemporary western cultures: the doctor. The robotic forms and designs shows the modern dependence on technology and science for healing. It's often perceived in western culture that if science and technology can't cure it, it's incurable. However, science and technology did not exist at these levels for hundreds of thousands of years, and humans managed to survive to be the most world-altering species on the planet. In other words, the science we depend so heavily on is not the only manner of healing available, but we rely 100% upon it. We also push it on others. The handle itself makes a statement on the so-called "healers" of modern days. The handle is long, and requires an absolute upright posture to wear the mask. In this pose, a person would seem to be puting themselves in a prideful, god-like posture. This represents the god complex displayed by many doctors. The massive grin has wide lips, which is a motif standard to all shaman masks, but the massive grin represents the fake smiles and joy that doctors act out to patients as they treat each patient as a mere number (the average doctor/patient interaction is less than 5 minutes).

Here's the original sculp of the second mask.

So there you go. I'm happy with the piece. It seemed to pull in my steampunk aesthetics accidently, as well. Can't argue with that!












See you space cowboy.......

New Pictures

Well, it was the last weekend of Frightworld. Last night was my last night of scaring for another 10 months. Very sad. But I guess now my life can return to school-focused. I'm still a designer there, so I'll still be working. Just not so late.



Anyway, I have some pictures to share. Some that I didn't know were out there, one that's really cool.



Here's a picture of me working on detailing the columns outside of Return of the Mummy's curse. I designed the column layout, then started carving and painting cracks into them, as well as antiquing them.


Here's another one of me working on the columns. I'm up on a lift because the columns are 10ft tall.


I didn't really know that those pictures were out there. Now I do. Damn stalkers.




This is the cool one. On the last night, our amazing makeup artists went to town. They really liked my bald head. So another actor named Rob Cmor sculpted and molded this wound, then our lead artist Arick Szymecki painted it, then our prop artist Andrew Lavin applied it to my scalp and applied the makeup around it. Pretty damn convincing.



Now I can take credit for three artistic tasks at Frightworld: I'm a designer, an artist, and a canvas.




See you space cowboy.......

Eye of Balor: Chasing and Repousse

Well for the chasing and repousse assignment, I've really been quite lost conceptually. So this morning I whipped out a bunch of my myth references and started reading. It worked out well because I found a story to use. Now, to some of you this idea may seem familiar. It's actually and idea I almost attempted a little over a year ago. It was right before Halloween last year, and I started to design a monocle. The monocole was going to be a monster's cycloptic eye. I actually got the idea from this myth, but totally forgot until I rediscovered it in one of my books.

The story is the Celtic myth of Balor. Balor is a god of death and king for the Fomorians, a race of monstorous giants that once controlled Ireland and were rooted to the sea. His father was Buarainech, a poison-maker. He kept Balor chained up at a young age, and the poisonous fumes made his one eye toxic. Everything he looked at died instantly. A prophecy came to him later that said his grandson would be destined to kill him, so he locked his only daughter up in a crystal tower on the island of Troy. With the help of the druid Birog, Cian (a God of the Tuatha de Danann who was trying to take over Ireland) inpregnated Balor's daughter. She had 3 sons, but Balor ordered that they all drown in the whirlpools near Troy. One son was dropped, and was saved by the druids. His name was Lugh. Lugh was raised as a proud warrior of the Tuatha de Danann, and was highly respected by his fellow gods. It's even said that the good god, Dagda, stepped down from his command of the De Danann military to allow Lugh to claim his destiny in the second battle at Mag Tuireadh. In this battle, Balor killed the De Danann leader but became tired. Since it took 7 servants to lift his eyelid, he closed his eye to rest. Right before the eye was completely closed, Lugh shot a rock from a magic slingshot at Balor's eye. His eye shot through the back of his head, and gazed upon his entire military behind him...Killing them all.

The Tuatha de Danann took over Ireland, allowing the Fomorians to live with them since their leader was killed. Eventually, the Milesians went to war with the Tuatha de Danann, and took over Ireland to become the ancestors of the modern inhabitants of Ireland. The Tuatha de Danann, along with the Fomorians, moved underground and became the fairy folk of Ireland.

So there we go. Really delved into the Cultural Anthropology on this one. So basically my plan is to do a monocle with 6 panels on it. I want the order and method of the display of the story to somewhat resemble that of Renaissance portals, with the large center one being similar to the tympanum. I made a digital sketch real quick of my idea, but I need to work out more details.

Stylistically, I'm going to take major influence from early (BCE) Celtic Metalsmithing styles. In other words, very round and somewhat idealistic. My primary reference for Celtic styling, especially in reference to chasing and repousse, is the Gundestrup cauldron. Here's a good picture of it.

Here's a close-up of the panel showing Cerennus, the god of the beasts.

So yeah, there we go. It's a decent start.

See you space cowboy....