Fairy Tale Friday: Why You Need Pumpkins

Halloween is coming! And of course you've carved your pumpkins.

You have to have your pumpkins!

Carved would be best- it's important that they show some light, so Jack-0f-the-lantern can find them. You know he rides on Halloween night, holding his lantern before him, following its light in place of his missing eyes. His horse lights its own way, with great blazing eyes glowing brighter than Jack's candle. Jack rides, seeking his stolen head-- lost through war or carelessness or to the predations of a greedy grave robber, no one knows. But Jack searches everywhere, and when he spies a carved pumpkin smiling its light out into the dark October evening--

He feeds it to his horse.

What? Even blazing eyed demon horses have to live on something. And if Jack can't find a pumpkin, he'll let his horse wander into your yard, and turn over your garbage cans, and sear hoof marks into the lawn, and generally make a great big mess.

So get your pumpkins ready, folks! And if I don't see you here before then, have a fantastic Halloween!

Mondoodle: Long Leggity Beasties!

This is where the poem always broke down for me. If we're hiding from "Long Leggity Beasties", does that mean Looong Beasties, who are leggity?

 

Or Beasties with long leggity-s?

And if it's the latter, I'm a bit offended, having rather long leggitys myself!

I will, though, confess to going Bump in the Night. And the Day. Long Leggitys are not conducive to absolute grace.  Perhaps the chant

From Ghoulies 
And Ghosties 
And Long Leggity Beasties
And Things that go Bump In the Night
Great Saints Preserve Us!

is meant to be a prayer of salvation for breakable items?

Well, this long leggity beastie has work to do-- but perhaps you'll weigh in on this crucial issue in the comments?

Wednesday WIP: Water Witch!

Halloween has me in a witchity mood! Plus I like drawing pointy hats (anyone know why witches wear pointy hats? Or why we think of witches in pointy hats?).

I wanted to have a water scene, and thought of the old dunking-stool. You know, the daft idea that people could separate the witchity from the foolish by dumping them in water, and seeing if they floated.

There seems to have been some disagreement on whether it was floating that meant innocence, or sinking, but my main quibble (well, aside from the horrible idea of drowning people because you don't like their personal practices) is this: You have in your grasp someone believed to have supernatural powers. Someone who, by your own reckoning, can fly, control the elements, and turn into animals.

And you think a puddle is going to ruin their day?!?

I don't *think* so. As a quick sketch in Painter illustrates (fine point pen tool, for those who really care).

I intend this to be a full-color piece, but color needs planning as much as basic composition. Heck, color is composition! I know I want this to be a light, maybe incongruously sunny piece-- something to offset all the gloom and doom or intolerance and panic that attended witch trials.

Also I like green and blue. So a few quick strokes to lay out the basic color scheme:

You can see I also added some background details-- a few fish, some fronds, the edges of what would be a pier if I'd drawn it in first. I like the idea of the witch being serene and untroubled in her bubble, while all kinds of visual noise swirls around. I'll see how much of that I can keep as I work!

What are you working on? Brag in the comments!

Mondoodle: Halloween is Coming! With Ghoulies and....

Gasp and shock! I  almost missed posting about one of my most favorite holidays! But it looks like I'm not too late to the party, right, Ghoulies?

Ah, very nice of you to invite me for dinner but I...don't think I'll have any cake. Or finger food. You just go ahead and enjoy, I'll let myself out...

See you all Wednesday!

(For those who don't know: Ghouls were originally creatures, perhaps once human, that lived off the flesh of the dead. I'm not sure exactly why that's considered so awful, technically we all live off the flesh of the dead, except the vegans, who live off the veg-flesh of the dead. But of course the flesh of dead humans is something else again, and has all sorts of side effects, like Packerism, Donner Mouth, Wendigo Feet, and jail. Don't do it, kids!)

Party Panic!

I have blogged before on my deep and abiding love for Halloween, day o' hedonism. This year, for the first time in ages, Halloween is falling on a Satyrday, thereby allowing me to have aparty with those of my friends not granted the artist's schedule.

This means, for the first time in years, I need a costume. Now to be sure, I have plenty of fancy dress- Renaissance festivals of a decade have left me well engarbed, and my recent passion for steampunk had only added to my wardrobe's oddness-- but for me these are *normal* clothes, which I wear any day I don't attend the dread Office Job. I want to dress up as something unusual and disturbing for Halloween! Without falling back on anything political. I mean, Zombie Nixon is plenty unnerving, but so overdone, you know?

Also, I do not want any "sexy". This disallows pretty much every female costume in the stores.

So, this is a callout to all my hypothetically extant blog readers-- what should I wear to the ball? Give me your suggestions, and don't worry about making them too weird-- because if I can't wear it, I'll draw it, and do a Halloween Costume Ball of the suggestions I get here!

ETA: I monetized my blog pretty much just to see what weirdzo ads Google would throw at me. I note with bitterness that I now have an ad for "Sexy" Halloween costumes on the side. Next week, I am blogging about trolls and old socks. See what they make of that.

Boo!

It's October! I don't know what's going on with your weather, but around here that means we're securely back in the land of double-digit Fahrenheit. Yay!

Oh yeah, and there's some sort of holiday. With candy and costumes and I'm having a party this year, and apparently can't even pretend I forgot Halloween.

Boo!

Just for Fun, to Pay it Forward

The Play of Light and Shadow has this little Halloween PIF going on:

And has generously capped it at three people, so the shy weird kid in class who only has three real blog readers can still play! Whew!
Having just survived our end-of-semester rush, I am feeling rather undead myself, and very much in the mood for some Halloweenness. So here's the deal: You be one of the first three commenters on this post, you get a big of Halloweeny suprise, drawn by me meyself. I do not promise it will be awesome, only original. Er. I will need to contact you for your mailing address, but worry not, I will not be mailing you dead fish or anything.
Then-of course-- you must go forth and Pay! Bwahaha! By offering a similar small bit of early Halloween to three readers on your blog! And linking back to me. Theoretically, if everyone did this faithfully, I guess a PIF could last forever! The sociologist in me is very interested to see that. Alack for proper network tracking software!
Ahem.Anyway.
Leave your comment, let me know you do want a bit o' art from me, and share your own Halloween spirit. Easy, right?
Now, I'm not gonna advertise this post. This is for long-timers, says me. So comment, I wanna know who I'm working for!

Boo!

And that is all I have to say today.:)

Daily Sketch #1: Skeercrow!

Ok, so I can't post something new everyday on Etsy. But so long as Blogger cooperates, there's no reason I can't have something new everyday here! And as mentioned, I need practice with the Cintiq.

So to kick off October, here's a skeercrow:



Woo, spooky! Not much like me, with the creepy glowing eyes. But I think he's jsut climbing over the fence to help a passing motorist with a flat tire. I mean, I drew him,he can't be *that* spooky.

I really like being able to get the bright color-on-black effect with Photoshop, along with the faded layout drawing-- I always sort of like having the ghost of the layout in my work, I might stick with that.

What do you think?