Strange Like Sam Flegal

Check out this video from the Nashville Comic and Horror Festival done by Nashville’s News Channel 5.

Manananggal the Filipino Vampire

As I said last week in my Marker Art post I’m really enjoying my new markers. Over the weekend I finished up a piece done Prismacolor markers. I then went over the markers in black pen. I used an 005, 01, and 05.

The piece is one I’ve wanted to do for a while. For those who don’t know my wife is Filipino. A few years back we went to the Philippines with her family. It was an awesome trip, and one of my favorite parts was getting to learn about Filipino myths, legends, and superstitions.

One of my favorites is the Manananggal, the Filipino vampire. Manananggal translates to”one who can remove.” In Philippine mythology the Manananggal is a witch-like person (usually a woman) with long hair and wild eyes who can detach her upper torso from the lower half of her body at night. When she does so she grows wicked claws and fangs, and bat wings sprout from her back. She usually flies in the dark searching for victims whose blood she sucks.

The common story is of a pregnant woman lying in bed asleep, the Manananggal lands on the thatched roof of the grass hut, lowers her long tongue into the house and sucks the blood of the fetus in the mother’s womb.

The only way to defeat a Manananggal is to find its lower torso and apply garlic or salt to the severed stump, which will make it impossible for the Manananggal to reattach itself. If the Manananggal is still in its monster form during the day, sunlight will destroy it.

Ever since I heard that myth I’ve wanted to draw it. The idea of a wild-eyed bat woman with her intestines hanging down always seemed pretty sweet to me. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

 

Filipino Vampire by Sam Flegal

Marker Art

At Dragon Con this year I stopped back by the booth of Jeff Preston. For those of you who’ve been reading my blog for the last year, you might remember that Jeff Preston reviewed my fledgling portfolio at Dragon Con last year. If you’re curious here’s the link to that post from October 15^th 2008.

What continues to amaze me about Jeff’s work is that not only is it awesome, but it’s even more awesome when you discover that he works in markers! That’s right markers! Take a moment and check out Jeff’s MySpace and you’ll see some really cool samples of his art.

So a funny thing happened at my local art store, Jerry’s Artorama. When I was walking about looking at all the fun art supplies I come across the type of markers that I saw Jeff using, and they were marked at only $20 for 12 markers! There were several different sets but I settled on Prismacolor Marker Set 12 Warm Gray. I think ran home to give them a try, and I loved them!

The first thing I drew was a simple zombie face. Whenever I’m testing out a new medium I like to stick to what I know and not venture out to far. When I was done I used my 005 pen to pick out some basic details.

 

Zombie Face by Sam Flegal

 

 

I liked the results so much that I did a monster face next, but this time I used my pens a 005, 01, and 05 to pick out more details.

 

Monster Face by Sam Flegal

 

 

I had so much fun with the markers that I brought them to Scare Fest. In between drawing Zombie Portraits we had some downtime early Saturday morning. My buddy Matt Essary looks at me and says, “Hey draw me a monkey with a knife.” I should mention that my friend Matt really enjoys coming up with random stuff and having me draw it. So I broke out the markers and once again rose to the occasion with this creepy little piece.

 

Monkey on Skulls by Sam Flegal

 

 

After Scarefest I was dying to draw my new Cat Skull, so once again I got out the markers and set to work.

 

Cat Skull by Sam Flegal

 

 

I have to say I LOVE my new markers! They are a lot of fun, and I love the finished look they give to my sketchy style. My next goal is to do a more finished illustration piece with the markers.

Later!

Scare Fest 2009

 

Scare Fest Booth (Scott on Left and Me on Right)

 

 

This September 11-13 I had the opportunity to be one of the vendors at Scare Fest. I packed my bags, and along with my friends Matt Essary and Scott Mizis, headed to Lexington, KY. It was different from the last few cons that I’ve done because there was no art show, so I had a vendor booth in the dealers room.

 

While Scott and I set to setting up the booth, Matt raced off with his wad of cash to take care of getting all his celebrity signatures early. A few minuets later Matt returned with his new friend Leslie Easterbrook (aka Mother Firefly from Devil’s Rejects) pushing him in his wheelchair. Matt then grinned at me and introduced me to Leslie. I found out that Leslie really wanted a Zombie Portrait done of her, and I was more than happy to do it. She explained that she wanted to send it off to Rob Zombie as a joke, because she was always trying to convince him to do a third film where the House of 1000 Corpses family comes back as zombies.

 

Leslie Easterbrook with Zombie Portrait

Matt Essary and Leslie Easterbrook

 

 

 

Later in the convention Matt brought Walter Phelan (aka Dr. Satan from House of 1000 Corpses) over to my booth, and he wanted a Zombie Portrait too! I was super pumped and when I finished and brought it to him I dropped to one knee threw up the devil hand signs and did the classic “Dr. Satan” high pitched yell from the movie. Walter was a really cool guy, and we chatted for a bit about the various behind the scenes stories from the movies he’s been in.

 

Walter Phelan with Zombie Portrait

 

 

The other highlight of Scarefest was being positioned across from Matt and The Insect Kingdom. Matt runs a business of framed butterflies, scorpions, beetles, bats, and various animal skulls. Needless to say I spent most of the weekend eyeing the skulls and the bats. As an artist I’m always looking for good references and it doesn’t get much better than owning your own bat! Matt was a super cool guy and I am thoroughly happy with my new bat and cat skull. All you artists out there should really check out his website the reference potential is amazing.

 

Me and my Framed Bat

 

 

In addition to the awesome celebrity endorsements and my new bat, I had the pleasure of zombiefying about 30 folks at Scarefest! I also sold one original inked drawing of the Death Jester and several prints and magnets of my art.

A big thanks to Scott and Matt for helping me man my booth! I couldn’t have done it without you guys!

For more examples of my zombie art at Scare Fest 2009 check out my Facebook photo album:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=106970&id=680083591&l=3c35f6e1a2

Gen Con 2009 Part 2 (Critiques!)

After talking with a few different artists I met at Hypericon I was highly encouraged to enter the Gen Con Art Show. I managed to purchase the last art booth for Gen Con about a week before submissions closed! And boy am I glad I did!

In addition to drawing a ton of Zombie Portraits I also had the privilege to go through several portfolio reviews by some really talented artists and art directors at the con. What was especially cool for me was that a couple of the artists had reviewed my portfolio at other conventions last year, and it was great to get some confirmation that I was improving. The other thing I found interesting was that once again I noticed a trend in the comments I was getting.

I want to take just a moment to talk about getting critiques, as I have done quite a lot of them in this last year. A close friend of mine, who is an aspiring writer, asked me a great question on critiques that I want to share.

 

“When taking a critique how do you know what feedback is valid and what to ignore?”

Like all things in the creative field to a certain degree you have to go with your gut. In the end art is about expression and as an artist it is specifically about YOUR expression. That said it is more than likely that the person you have asked to look at your work is either a professional in your field who’s work you admire or a art director/editor who you want to work for. That means that in your chosen field they know more than you! Take just a moment to let that stew, swallow your pride, and remember to listen. Don’t defend yourself, and let your work speak for itself.

If you can do all that then very likely you will get some good feedback. Ideally you will show your work to multiple people, and over time you will find that all these different people, with different styles and ideas of the own, keep saying the same things. Those are the comments to hold onto, and hold them tight. Right them down analyze them, and really take them to heart. In the end one person’s opinion may be a fluke or might not gel with what you’re trying to do, but when several people from different backgrounds keep saying the same thing… take the clue.

For me at Gen Con this year I once again saw certain comments about my work made to me again and again. In the past I’ve gone through and detailed each individual critique, but this time I’m going to speak on them in a collective.

The first comment I got a lot was, “Better Anatomy.” I need to work more with models, references, and really nail down the anatomy in a sketch. I need to make sure my figures don’t flatten out when I ad clothing, focusing on the roundness of form. I kept hearing that I was close, but just not there yet.

The second comment I kept getting was that I needed to pay attention to my “Values and Color.” My black and white stuff was fine, but when I moved into color I often lost depth in the image by using the same value of colors throughout the piece. I needed to do a black and white under drawing, before moving into color.

The third and final comment I received a lot was that I needed to work on my “Textures.” I need to make sure that wood, leather, and skin all react differently to light. Specifically making sure that the shadows don’t flatten out the piece.

All in all I felt really good about the critiques I received. I was told pretty much universally that my Explorer illustration was my best, but that the values in my Silia illustration where good, and the color in the Dwarf Surveyor illustration was where I did the best job of blending. So if I can combine better values and color with the dynamic composition of the Explorer than I will be in a good place.

Once again I found all the critiques very energizing and I can’t wait to do some more drawing and painting.

A special thanks to all the folks at Gen Con who critiqued my work:

John Tyler Christopher (Illustrator)

Randy Gallegos (Illustrator)

Jim Pinto (Art Director for AEG)

Wayne Reynolds (Illustrator)

Sarah Robinson (Art Director for Paizo’s Pathfinder)

Jon Schindehette (Art Director for Wizards of the Coast)

Chris Seaman (Illustrator)

Ben Thompson (Creative Developer for Blizzard)

Richard Whitters (Lead Concept Artist for Magic the Gathering)

Gen Con 2009: The Con of 85 Zombies!

I know that in the epic fashion of horror film 85 zombies does not seem like a lot, but for me it was a horde! Let me start of by saying that Gen Con was a Blast! It was one of the best administered conventions I have participated in, largely thanks to Barbara the art show director. Let me pause here a moment to give Barbara a big round of applause!

::Applause!!!::

 

Sam Flegal's Gen Con 2009 Booth

For me Gen Con officially started at 9am Wednesday August 12^th. My wife Loraine, my friend Sarah Roush, and I all pilled into my car and drove to Indianapolis, Indiana. We arrived in the afternoon and immediately set to finding the art show and setting up my booth. We hung up and arranged all my framed pieces, we organized my prints, and gussied up my table. A big thanks to my wife and her mad decorative skills and Sarah for her help! As we did at Hypericon we put up a sign advertising Zombie Portraits. Little did I know how big a difference in my weekend this would make!

 

By the time Gen Con was over I had drawn over 60 Zombie Portraits, which totaled to 85 individual Zombies!!! The most popular item by far, was the Couples Zombie Portrait. Geeks in love are a beautiful thing, but I also did fathers and their children, families, friends, and roommates. I literally could not draw fast enough to keep up with the impending Zombie Horde.

 

Angry Zombie

 

 

On Thursday, our slowest day, I did a few Zombie Portraits and also sold a framed piece. As people would walk by they would say, “Zombie Portraits… what a neat idea.” On Friday I did twice as many Zombie Portraits, discovering that key was in a camera. When I’ve done Zombie Portraits in the past, I had people sit a talk with me while I drew their portrait. At Gen Con however people were always on the move, going to their next game, or event, or shopping, etc… So thanks to my wife’s love of photography we started taking peoples pictures and telling them they could come back later to pick up the finished Zombie Portrait.

This option was REALY popular. At first I was drawing directly from my wife’s digital camera screen. My friend, Adam Doochin, came by and saw me hunched over the tiny screen and took pity on me. He happened to bring his amazing Mac laptop, and told me I could use it for the weekend. I was in business!!!

 

Zombie Youth

 

 

On Saturday things were CRAZY. We had tones of folks swarming the booth asking for Zombie Portraits. It got to the point where I had so much to draw, that I had to stop talking with people. Loraine (my wife) took over as my manager. She talked with people, took their photos, wrote down their information, and noted special requests (you know things like missing an eye, or licking someone’s brain). Loraine was AWESOME!!! There is no doubt in my mind that I could not have done it without her. Thank You Sweetie!

Saturday night we had so many requests that I was drawing zombies until 2 am! I did manage to find the time to spend an hour at the White-Wolf party hanging with some old friends and my other artist friends. I was able to teach my fellow artist Sarah Frary all the proper hand signals to be a werewolf, after which it was back to drawing zombies!

On Sunday I was a Zombie! Thanks to Sarah Roush I was able to eat breakfast. I continued to draw zombies throughout the day, but as people walked past the booth their comments had changed. People would say, “Oh look it’s the Zombie Portrait guy, I’ve heard of him.” Apparently news travels fast in tiny Gen Con Town. Cool!

Some of the more interesting Zombie Portrait requests included a couple who wanted Santa Hats on their Zombies because they were going to use it as their Christmas card this year, a gaming group who all wanted to pose together, and guy who collected images of characters knitting, for whom I drew a zombie knitting a scarf from the hair of a severed head.

 

Christmas Card Zombies

 

 

I was truly honored and overwhelmed by the response I got from the fans at Gen Con. I had no idea my Zombie Portraits would be so successful. Thanks to each and every person who gave me the opportunity to bring them into the world of the undead!

With the success of Gen Con I am officially looking for other Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror conventions to do Zombie Portraits at. If you or friend knows of an event please drop me a line via my website: www.samflegal.com

However, this only scratches the surface of my Gen Con experience more to come on the awesome artists I met, my artist friends who I got to hang out with again, and the numerous portfolio reviews I went through. Stay Tuned…

Magic from the Ether

Fortunately for me Jeremiah was very pleased with the painting of the Silia, and has given me the opportunity to delve further into his creation, the world of Gaeana. This time around I began a more ambitious project, to depict all the various uses of magic, which in Gaeana is quite different than your typical fantasy setting. As I personally love magic I was very excited about starting this project.

Magic in Gaeana is governed by various elements and produces much simpler effects than your traditional fantasy fireball. In order to tap into the world’s magic an Elementalist needs to find a Gaena stone associated with the right element and surgically place it in the back of their hand. In this first piece I depicted an Aether Elementalist using the power of Aether, the element that connects all other elements, to divine the location of an important object.

In each of these elemental magic paintings we agreed to forgo a traditional background, instead showing a visual representation of the raw element swirling behind the mage. To start I wanted to build the background separately since I would be using it in multiple paintings.

After several discussions with Jeremiah, he explained that Aether is clear, prismatic, and slightly smoky in appearance. To me the idea of a prism conjures a pattern to mind. So I started building a prismatic pattern in Photoshop.

 

Prism Pattern

 

 

I then brought it into Painter X and smoothed out the pattern and began adding smoke effects.

 

Aether Background

 

 

I finally brought it back into Photoshop where I completed the smoky look.

 

Final Aether Background

 

 

Earlier I had done a sketch of the Elementalist and got it approved by Jeremiah.

 

Elementalist Sketch

 

 

I scanned it into my computer and worked the under color up in Painter X.

 

Elementalist Under Painting

 

 

Recently I discovered an interesting use for the blending tool in Painter X. I’ve found that if I blend the original drawing with the under painting that it helps create a nice tonal range within the piece.

 

Blended Elementalist

 

 

I then continued building up the painting to completion.

 

Elementalist Painting

 

 

In the end I combined the background with the figure and painted some of the background color into the figure to create a better color harmony throughout the finished painting.

 

Aether Elementalist Final Painting

 

 

I’m quite pleased with the final results, but more importantly Jeremiah loved it!

Art Night (Prologue: The Heroes Unite)

Last night my friend Grant and I started something that I truly hope we are able to keep up… Art Night! I went over to Grant’s house and for three hours we talked about art, each others influences, and put pencil to paper. We both have a lot of ideas for what we plan to do with the time, but the simple idea is that every other Monday we will get together with purpose of engaging in art centered activities.

For our first Art Night, Grant busted out his collection of Virtual Pose books, a collection of nude models in interesting poses, for us to do life drawing from. I had no previous knowledge of this series but after one night of use I can say it is awesome! Virtual Pose is both a book and a CD. Each nude model, on the CD, is organized by their corresponding page number from the book. When you pull them up in QuickTime you can rotate the model 360 degrees to find just the right pose.

In order to ad a random element to our model choices we broke out a couple of six sided dice and rolled to see which pose we would do. After settling on the angle of the pose we would draw for 10 to 15 minuets, working in pencil on sketchbook paper. All said and done we did four poses (posted below).

Our time flew by and I honestly can’t wait for the next Art Night!

 

Male Crouching

Woman Sitting Arms Out

Woman Sitting

Woman Standing with Staff

Illustration of the Silia

I recently had the opportunity to delve into the world of Gaeana, a world of legend and myth, a world of ancient technology, a world of possibilities. A friend of mine, Jeremiah “Blue Jai” Sanders is a writer, among many other things, and the creator of Gaeana, hired me to help illustrate his world. The first creature we tackled together was the Silia, a lizardman race of Gaeana, described as “ruthless, cunning, honorable, dangerous, and loyal.”

Visually the Silia represent the evolution of a lizard, something like a komodo dragon, into a humanoid creature. I got together with Jeremiah and did a number of concept sketches, and together we worked out the look for the Silia. The most challenging visual aspect of the Silia is fleshy ridge that runs over their eyes and down their back.

From there I started working up various sketches, positioning the Silia in different poses and environments. At this stages the sketches are super loose. Sketch is probably not even the right term. Scribble is much closer. After a few scribbles I settled on one to build up.

 

Silia Scribble

 

 

I scanned in the scribble. Blew it up and printed it out on 9 x 12 Bristol board. I then worked up a more refined sketch.

 

Feral Silia Sketch

 

 

At this stage I showed the sketch to Jeremiah. His response was that the Silia looked too feral. He didn’t want the pictures in his book to look like something out of Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual (i.e. action pose, holding a weapon). Jeremiah explained that Gaeana is more about mystery and exploration, so he suggested changing the scene to a Silia exploring a subterranean cave, armed with the gear needed for spelunking and mining treasure.

So I scanned in the feral Silia sketch and printed it out on 9 x 12 Bristol board. I then re-worked the sketch based on Jeremiah’s feedback.

 

Exploring Silia Sketch

 

 

This time Jeremiah loved it, and felt that it matched the feel he was going for. So I scanned in the exploring Silia sketch printed it out on 9 x 12 Bristol board, and built up a more finished tonal drawing.

 

Silia Drawing

 

 

Once again Jeremiah liked it, so I scanned it in and starting painting. I started off by doing an under painting filling in tones beneath my pencil drawing.

 

Silia Under Painting

 

 

I then started building up the tones over the pencil drawing to form a base painting.

 

Silia Base Painting

 

 

One thing different about this digital painting from my past works is that I wanted to do the whole painting in Corel Painter X, a painting program that until recently I only used for basic stuff. To help me learn more about Painter X I’ve been reading Advanced Painter Techniques by Don Seegmilller. It’s been a big help, and I highly recommend the book to anyone wanting to learn more about Corel Painter X.

Armed with more knowledge of Painter X I set to work building up the painting to its completion.

 

Silia Finished Painting

 

 

In the end I’m very pleased with the results! I showed it to Jeremiah and he loved it! Success!

Zombie Portraits (or A Brief Essay on Erosion Art)

 

Zombie Matt Essary

At Hypericon this year I debuted my Zombie Portrait drawing business. After hanging my art I set up my booth and put out my sign for Zombie Portraits only $20! The first person to take interest in my art was a lovely lady named Sara Jo. As soon as she saw my sign about Zombie Portraits she exclaimed, “Oh I must tell my husband he will love this!”

 

As it turns out Sarah Jo’s husband is the well renowned writer Jonathan Maberry who writes numerous amounts of fiction some of which features zombies. In particular he mentioned a new book he was working on featured apocalyptic police sketch artists that help people find their lost loved ones who have turned into zombies by taking family photos and drawing the zombified version of the person. These zombie sketch artist are called “Erosion Artists.”

Who knew, I’m an Erosion Artist! Pretty cool!

 

Zombie Dave

 

 

Throughout the rest of the con I got to meet all sorts of interesting people enticed by the possibility of getting a zombie portrait. I also learned that for many people being undead and alone was not near as enticing as being undead and together forever! So I introduced the $30 couples zombie portrait, and it was a hit!

 

My First Zombie Couple

 

 

All said and done I had a blast meeting people, zombifing them, and getting to know them as I drew. It was a lot of fun! I also made some great business contacts of people interested in hiring me to do events where I draw zombie portraits.

And so it’s official, zombie portraits are a success! If you or someone you know wants to be zombified please contact me at once! And yes I now do parties and events so if you (or a friend) want to spice up your celebration or meeting give me call. I’ll be happy to help make it an apocalyptic good time!

 

Zombie Sarah Frary