Wizard World Cleveland

This weekend (Fri-Sun) you can find me in Ohio for the Cleveland Comic Con. I hear it's a good show and this will be my first appearance there, so come on by Artists Alley and say hello. I will have books, prints, sketch cards, original art and I'll be doing commissions, as well. 

Michigan will be well represented with fellow artists The Minor Brothers (Matt, Jake and Kevin), Bill Pulkovski, Dom Riggio just to name a few. 

Visigoths

So, last week this beautiful mind pulls out into traffic doing about ten miles per hour causing me to hit the breaks before plowing into him. He then proceeds to go even slower if that's possible and as I try to go around him he drifts over to cut me off. Finally, he gets over as driving is a very difficult thing and I can get past this danger to everyone. As I look over he has the universal sign of aggression (and I give him the universal sign for hello) with the lifted chin and smug look. Another moron who's only purpose is to get in the way.

Sigh. Probably another Trump supporter.

My Favorite Martian Sketch cards

These are the sketch cards that I did for the My Favorite Martian that has been recently released through Unstoppable Cards, but is now sold out according to their website. They have hit eBay, though.

How We Built A Weathervane, Part Ten

It's Monday, so that means another round of weathervane goodness. The last time I showed the first of the metal work, so on with more of that.

Here, the fins are all cast and pretty much cleaned up. 

More work on the directionals that will be attached to each eel. 

The first half of an eel getting cleaned up after the funnel and flashing have been removed.

The second half of the eel just after the funnel has been cut off. 

The three sections of one of the gar halves. This has been almost cleaned up and now needs to be welded together and any holes (one can be seen in the tail fin) need filling.

Gar face.

Nario of Venus Bronze Works begins welding the section of the gar together.

Mario attaching the head of the gar at this point.

Super Nonny

So, I spent a lot of last year working on a 10 page comic book commission for David Himmel, who is a writer and the editor-in-chief for Chicago Health Magazine. Super Nonny is a story about his grandmother and great-grandmother to the four children in the story, David's nephews and niece. At first I was little hesitant to take the job, with this being a personal story with likenesses and all. But, after reading the script I was more than happy to do this one. David created not just a cute little story about his Nonny, but a witty and charming tale that can be enjoyed by anyone who reads it. I guess that is what being a good writer is all about. 

Over the next coming weeks I will show the story in it's entirety. Super Nonny, written by David (a gift for his family), pencils and inks by yours truly and my Stoopid Stuf co-hort Kevin Minor helped out with the interior colors. I did the cover colors seen above and knew it would take me forever just to make it look passable, so I needed someone with better skills than I. 

Click on the above image to engorge.

How We Built A Weathervane, Part Nine

On to the metal part of the show.

We had these steel weather directionals made up from a company in Texas to fashion the copper over the top of to get the form right.

The first of the copper work, as Nario of Venus Bronze Works cut out the shapes for the letters.

The gar molds have been filled with aluminum. You can see one of the funnels at the near end mold. The sand molds will now be hammered apart at this point.

The nose end and mid section of the gar after the top half of the mold was broken off.

One half of the tail fin in aluminum.

The blackened look is just the burnt sand from the mold coming into contact with the liquid aluminum. 

The two electric eel halves in aluminum.

One half of an eel with the sand brushed off. The funnel will be cut off next.

The tail end with funnel still attached.

Aluminum eel and gar cleaned up as much as needed for the cutting and grinding to begin.

Shiver On The River 2016

This Saturday is the annual Shiver On The River event on Belle Isle in Detroit. All sorts of events are planned and most or all of the buildings will be open, including the aquarium. Festivities start at 10am.

How We Built A Weathervane, Part Eight

Next up in the process of making the Belle Isle Aquarium weathervane was the final mold making that would be needed to cast the metal. In this case, aluminum.

These are sand molds that were made around the plaster castings. This is one half of the gar.

The plaster has been mostly removed and since the gar measures in at about four and a half feet the sand molds had to be sectioned off into three parts to be cast separately. Sheet metal was used to separate the parts.

Here is a side view showing the narrowing of the nose of the gar.

These past three pics show the making of the second half of the molds.

Here are the molds for the electric eel. Note, in these, as well as the gar pics, the 'knuckle' marks to line up the molds. At this stage, the work was mostly done by artist Leslie Cisco while doing the same for the Robocop statue molds. Thanks to Leslie for the pics!