From Aubrey Beardsley to William Morris, I find great inspiration from the British Aesthetic, Decadent, and Arts & Crafts Movements of the 1890s.
This blog is dedicated to those inspirations and is a place where I will share my art, writings, and musings about these movements. I hope to show how those moments in time have inspired me today.
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Coloring My D&D Character: Bodach
I’ve begun experimenting with digital coloring. This is my first complete test using the Autodesk Sketchbook program. I very much like the results, I think! This is another D&D character I’m designing for another campaign. His name is Bodach and he is a human rogue. After his village burned down, he and his sister were… Read more
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The Spectre Series: The Vampyre
Like the original Spectre piece, this one was also heavy inspired by listening to I Monster. In particular, the song for “Lust for a Vampyre” led me to imagine a kind of pathetic vampire character–one driven and controlled by his need for blood, but completely weak, pathetic, and self-deprecating. He is literally haunted by the… Read more
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The Spectre Series: Experiments in Pattern Work
Wow! This took quite a bit to do, but was very rewarding and fun! Here we see The Spectre character looming over a female figure–perhaps the muse who treasured Orpheus’s head in my “Melancholy of Orpheus” illustration. Regardless, I love the amount of detail that went into this piece. The beautiful chrysanthemum and lily flower… Read more
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Cross Stitching William Morris’s Strawberry Thief
When I’m not drawing, something I very much enjoy doing to relax is cross stitch. In the spirit of this blog, I wanted to share my cross stitch attempt at William Morris’s Strawberry Thief pattern. This is one of my personal favorites! (You can see the carpet bag in the background that my sister gave… Read more
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Creating a D&D Character
Although I work in the comic book industry, I’ve always stayed away from the gaming side of that world. That said, I recently joined a local group and started learning how to play Dungeons & Dragons. And it’s been a lot of fun! Something that I find incredibly fun, in particular, is the building of… Read more
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The Spectre Series: Inception
Although this isn’t the first illustration I did of the character “The Spectre,” this was the first instance where he was given a name and identified. I got the idea after listening to the album “A Dense Swarm of Ancient Stars” from one of my favorite electronic music groups I Monster. He is this kind… Read more
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Man on a Motorcycle
A rare illustration I colored, but this has always been a favorite with friends, so I’m sharing it with you! As I recall, I rendered this from a magazine advertisement, so the overall composition (model, pose, bike, etc.) are not my own, but it was fun to draw nonetheless. Although you can see my preference… Read more
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The Russian Boy
Inspired by the Russian boy character in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, this was really the piece where I started playing with textiles and patterns. There is a phrase in the book that led to this illustration which I have also included–“Let not the Russian Boy be stripped of his parti-coloured rags lest he become… Read more
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Peacock Ballerina
This was a fun one to draw. A bit of an experiment, I was interested in demonstrating how a specific repeated pattern could create the appearance of certain objects. The peacock feather pattern creates the ballerina’s flowing skirt. The repetition of simple dashes construct the poofs on her slippers. Dots and lines represent sand pouring… Read more
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The Melancholy of Orpheus
Beyond the moon and o’er mountaintop,Where sun nor star can reach the hidden hill.In pond lay meat aside and left achop,And blood forever flowing never still. Lay bard of great measure and songful headWho met a death brought by the women’s rage.So strong the rocks did break his mighty steadAnd left the soundless cripple in… Read more
Aesthetic * Decadent 