The Wayward Queen Webcomic: IT BEGINS!

Special announcement! My new webcomic is now LIVE! Check it out: http://www.queengwenevere.com/wayward-queen/

Today's post is the fancy-schmancy cover that took forever to paint. Actual pages will be black and white, with occasional covers and splash screens in color. Be warned that the first sixty pages or so are gonna look really reeeeeally old compared to my current stuff - I started drawing the backlog around 2006, with interruptions. But after that, the art rapidly catches up with my current work. Think of it as a little stroll back through time, with time-skips where I suddenly level up!

The cover is oil on canvas, 14X17 inches, and in retrospect I should probably have either painted it a lot bigger or used something smoother than canvas, because, THOSE DETAILS. SO TINY. ARGH. Trying to paint them on a textured surface was something of an ordeal. Panel would have been perfect, I think. Oh well, live and learn! Life studies for this painting are posted here, here, and here. Up-close details below!

Here's the sketches for the cover, a digital color rough, and progress shots of the acual painting - the first rough doodle was drawn eons ago (2004? 2005?) and then it sort of sat forgotten for a while until I revived it some years later. Then I did the more finished drawing, and started the underpainting - and then it sat AGAIN for a few years, until I hauled it out this year and finished it.

Cavorting in the Cosmic Cavern

Be warned, this post contains eye-searing colors and cell-phone photography! NOT something I would normally post, but last Saturday I ventured to Kenny Scharf's Cosmic Cavern for yet another Draw-a-thon... This one involved covering the models in fluorescent paint in black light. Didn't get many presentable drawings out of this, frankly (at any rate, not many that looked good in normal light. Ahem. And I forgot my pen, that didn't help.)

But the SPACE... DAMN, that's a cool space. It's in a basement, and has gobs of fluorescent glow-in-the-dark junk glued all over the walls and ceiling, it is TRIPPY, man. Apparently Kenny Scharf has been adding stuff to it for thirty years or so, there's just infinite layers of day-glo in there. Of course we weren't allowed to photograph the models or the event, so I didn't have a real camera, but afterwards I couldn't resist snapping some pix with my iPhone. Okay, so, iPhone snaps taken in black light, don't expect quality here. But I had to show this space, it really is too cool.

(Oh, that doodle over there is Kenny Scharf, he was flitting through periodically in bright pink wig and tights...)

(If this post appears twice - or several times - it's because I'm wrestling with Blogger and Picasa trying to get them to NOT MANGLE MY IMAGES arrrrggggh...) (Bear with us... I'll figure something out... hang on...) (Okay, we're good, I think... damn silly solution, but okay.)

The Glow-in-the-Dark Psychedelic Dollhouse...

Happy Chairs! Fluorescent Palm Trees! Seriously now, what's not to like!? I could totally live in this room...

The ceiling was pretty amazing...

The walls were amazing, too...

Some obligatory doodles from the event... Mostly a mess, but what the heck. May as well show some of 'em. (More better drawings in the next post, promise!)