patokon blog

True Detective is one of the creepiest, most atmospheric, most highly nuanced series I've ever seen. My second inktober drawing of the month is an homage to this fascinating and unsettling show.  The show mentions a King in Yellow which is from a book of the same name by Robert W. Chambers (1895).  I've just started reading this book bout a play that if read drives the reader insane and now I can't stop dreaming of Lost Carcosa under the black stars. The King calls to me now...

I was suddenly possessed by the desire to draw lighthouses. Inspired by the work of  Don Kenn , Edward Gorey, and H.P. Lovecraft. First in a possible series.

The movie "Rolling Thunder" is one of those gems that you just don't hear about. At least I hadn't heard of it until my good buddy J.R. brought it over for us to watch.  William Devane was perfect as the man who survived being a POW in Vietnam and is trying his god-damnedest to make it back in "the world". His wife has moved on and he doesn't really know how to relate to her anymore anyway. Tommy Lee Jones' character came back from captivity with him and he also has no idea how to lead a normal life. His wife and family are trying really hard to be loving and happy and are also trying to pretend that nothing is wrong. They are both completely numb, but go through the motions without complaint.  It takes murder, torture, and mutilation to push these men into action, but once the action is needed, they both slide so easily into combat mode that you can actually see the relief on their faces that they are going into life-threatening battle rather than h...

This year marks the 10th anniversary of my first exhibition which took place at the Setagaya Museum in 2004. In 2007, I held my first solo show, and though I sold most of my pieces, I wasn't quite happy with my level. I continued to learn, grow, and evolve as an artist, but it always felt like something was missing. Since I've moved to Kumamoto, so many things have changed! I've found the right tools and materials, I'm more confident in line and layout, I feel like I've finally found my direction. How did I go from having very little confidence to being consistently happy with my work? Here’s a list of things that helped me get where I am today and which will help me become the artist I want to be in the future: Studying the masters - by copying and not just looking, you will learn lots of new things. I do this with a friend and we discuss what we’ve learned. No longer drawing what I think others will like - you will be more honest to yourself about what r...

I've just started using toned paper. I'm enjoying the hell out of it. I drew 5 or 6 things today just trying out different things. In this post I'll show my retro Godzilla drawings. If you haven't seen the original Japanese version, you are missing out. The English version is usually called Godzilla, King of Monsters while the Japanese version is simply titled Gojira (at least on Hulu Plus).  The materials I'm using to work on this paper are:  Nouvel PIGMA Comicline 08 for even-weight lines Kuretake Fudegokochi brush pen for changeable width lines COPIC for shades and colors.  And finally, I use Uni-ball Signo White gel pen (Thick) for the white highlights.  I'm thinking of switching to white color pencils so I can gradate the highlights.

Lee Van Cleef as Tony Romano in 'Kansas City Confidential', a film noir piece about a perfect crime and a patsy who tracks down the gang that set him up.  Riveting story and some great performances by some legendary bad-asses. Worth a watch.  It's available on archive.org and easily findable on YouTube as it is firmly within the public domain. 

I finally saw this groundbreaking Swedish exploitation revenge film starring cult fan favorite Christina Lindberg. Not the most amazing actress, but even so she has such presence. You just can't take your eyes off her. 

I decided to continue to practice crosshatching and I thought I photos by photographer Edward S. Curtis might be excellent thanks to the balance of light and dark and clear gradations in his works. The moment I saw the photo of Big Head (his name, original found here: http://m.theatlantic.com/infocus/2013/04/native-americans-portraits-from-a-century-ago/100489/) I knew that he would be the perfect practice subject. I did a very quick layout with blue-pencil, added a few shading guides, and then jumped right in with a Tachikawa Finepoint System 0.1 and 0.4. I put emphasis on trying out techniques rather than slavish attention to detail. Even though I'm working on developing a more cartoonish style and don't intend to focus on realism, it was definitely an excellent way to practice drawing uniform lines and applying different combinations of patterns. I realize now that in some areas, I should have left the horizontal lines alone without crossing them with verticals. I'm goin...

My favorite Tarantino line of all time delivered by Michael Madsen as Mr. Blonde in Reservoir Dogs. 

Watching Dead in Tombstone starring Danny Trejo, I was inspired to focus on this drawing more than the movie. Still, I'm glad Señor Trejo gets to be the star these days. 

"Search" Drawn for Illustration Friday . Finally filled another page in my larger moleskine sketchbook. Was so busy doing this piece, I almost forgot to upload Tomoko 's artwork to the Hexenringe webcomic .

I've retouched an old piece for Illustration Friday not realizing Reflect was last week's theme. Oh well. On reflecting: I spent way too much time reflecting and not enough time doing when I was much younger, but I have to admit that the experience hasn't been a total loss. Experience is still experience even if it's in your head and I'm a lot more prepared to be an active artist, husband, and dad than I ever was before. If you're going to spend a lot of time being haunted by your demons, might as well get chummy with them. Running away from them doesn't do you or those around you any favors. And who knows... they might be AWESOME!