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The Clipper: a cantankerous beast that hunts down smaller robots and critters. It first impales them with its hook arm, and then snips off useful bits with its clipper arm or jaws that it can add to its armor plating or make repairs with.

It's slow moving, so it typically waits to ambush its prey and is very crafty and cunning. To make up for its slow speed, it has heavy armor plates and is extremely strong. It's still seeking more armor bits to protect its heart and power supply.

This is a contest submission for the movie 9 on Deviantart.

Down to the last minute, my buddy Jim and I burned the midnight oil and finished this up at 11:40 PM last night in a frenzied rush of grinding, cutting, riveting, twisting, blood, sweat, and... well, no tears, I don't think either of us cried while making this. We're still definitely nursing more than a few nicks, scrapes, and scratches from working with all of that metal though.

This was an awesome project though. We procrastinated a bit, of course, so we were sort of scrambling at the last minute, but we managed to get it done without too many compromises.

Components include the following:

1. The guts of a broken wind up clock
2. The heating elements of a burned out electric space heater
3. an old rusty ice hook
4. a pair of rusty hand clippers that had been inexplicably dipped in yellow paint
5. the sheet metal from an ancient rusted out tub that looks like it may have been a still for a moonshine operation back in the prohibition days
6. worn down snow tire chains
7. several armatures from car rear view mirrors
8. an old rusty trowel
9. Half a dozen old electrical relays
10. a bunch of braces and brackets for fixing cabinets that turned into this guy's bones
11. Several old rusty horseshoes
12. What felt like hundreds of feet of steel wire, and hundreds of nuts, bolts, rivets, washers, and wingnuts

I'm absolutely certain there are more random weird parts in there, but that's all I can think of off the top of my head.

I was hoping we could get a more dynamic look, but once he started pushing thirty+ pounds we were more concerned with keeping him upright and sturdy than getting a slick action pose.

We'd like to thank the guys at The Junk Shop for letting us rummage through their piles old rusty contraptions and take a bunch of parts for twenty five bucks.

We'd also like to thank the Sadie Mae Foundation for giving us first dibs on all of the good old junk and tools from their fund raising tag sale.

Well, that's all for now, I've already typed up too much here. We'll find out if we placed in the contest on the 30th.

New characters, new scenes, a little more of the world revealed.

Just another random sketch of mine. Well, it was supposed to be a loose sort of unwind sketch after getting too stiff and burned out on comic work, but I went a little further than the average sketch. Came out pretty cool though, so I can't really complain.

Man, I really want some waffles now...

Well, I sold my guitar. A family member asked me recently how my playing was going, since she was looking to buy one, and I said "I haven't touched that thing in like, five years" and I realized, right then and there, that I will never be a rock star, or even one of those assholes who plays sloppy chords while people are hanging around a campfire during the summer with a couple of beers.

You see, I have zero musical talent. And I finally realized it this week, and crushed my tiny dreams between my thumb and forefinger as I grabbed the cash my relative paid me for my old Axe.

So sad...

...

Ok, not really, I think I played it like, a dozen times, and could never even properly play a damn thing. We can't all be virtuosos. :(

I used most of the money to buy a set of new Sony Sony MDR7506 Large Diaphragm headphones for my B-day though, so at least my musical appreciation abilities will get a huge boost ^__^

Just another goofy late night sketch. I finished coloring it today. Testing out a bunch of new free patterns too.

As per usual, I can't really explain where my weird stuff comes from.

Well, I guess I should call this a sketch, even though I burned around three hours working on it today. I've been running a Shadowrun campaign for my gamer crew, and a character came up that sort of got invented on the fly (which is how I run everything, more or less), and she was absolutely stereotypically goth, and for some reason I felt like drawing her out a bit and expanding the character. Came out ok, I think.

I guess I'm stalling for Steamvolt page five or something; just needed to do a bit more of a relaxed sort of sketch before I dive into another whole page layout.

I'm thinking of trying out Google Sketchup too; I've seen some amazing work done with it on Deviant Art, so I may test out using it as a sort of base for aircraft and vehicles, which I am horrible at drawing.

That's actually sort of ironic too; as a kid I hated drawing people and faces, but loved drawing guns and robots and airplanes and stuff. I'd draw an insanely detailed tank, but it was piloted by doofy little stick figures. Now that I'm old, I seem to have completely swapped my preferences.

Well, I'm off to install it and give it a try, we'll see how it turns out!

Well, didn't feel like sitting on this till Monday, so here's 1.4. Finally getting a little action going :)

This is just a funky sketch with a lot of weird miscellaneous techniques that I've puttered around with in the evening while I'm nodding off and listening to tunes.

The weather around here has been pretty awful this summer, so I guess that's where it came from. That, and I suck at drawing people, so I'm always trying to practice, especially hot chics.

I've been spending a crazy amount of time on deviantart, mainly to keep myself inspired and motivated to work on my art and comic stuff. I've spent a lot of time on other forums and stuff related to art, but they're generally a little disheartening; it's hard to get consistent feedback with smaller groups when you don't know them. The folks on DA seem pretty forward about being supportive and encouraging. Since I'm critically lacking in self esteem, this has been pretty excellent.

The big thing I've been working on is my Steamvolt comic project, which I realize now I have done nothing to explain or really promote. I'm going to work up a separate simple site that just holds the comics for it and maybe some concept art and sketches, and pretty much nothing else. Nice and simple. I'm going for a simpler theme too, since I'm always struggling with this old cobbled together drupal installation and it's quirks and flaws. Try and be like, professional and shit.

I've been drawing a lot of imps and hellish critters lately when I'm not grinding away at the Steamvolt comic. I'll admit, a lot of my inspiration comes from Barlowe's Guide to the Inferno, which is a pretty incredible piece of work.

Now, I'm not the least bit religious, and I don't believe in any of this stuff, but the concept of it I find fascinating. The whole notion of damnation and eternal torment and that there's a place for sinners and such to go once they die. It's just interesting stuff. The imagery such ideas conjure up, along with the emotional impact they can have are pretty intense. So chances are, I'm going to keep sketching stuff like this for a while now.

This one started out as a pencil sketch back in 2007 or maybe early 2008. I finally got around to slapping some color onto it. I was thinking of this critter as sort of a scavenger and hunter, with a jaw for crushing bones and a rasping tongue to extract marrow. Sort of like Hell's version of a Hyena. Yes, these are the things I actually daydream about. Fun stuff!

And speaking of Hell and damnation, I was stuck in a three hour long motivational seminar yesterday at work. Now, I'll admit, this one wasn't as painful as some of the one's I've been forced to go to in the past, but it was still pretty mind numbing. The best thing I got out of it was a goofy sketch I whipped up on a notepad while I was trying to stay focused.

I've always been pretty fascinated by the macabre or twisted, as well as the bizarre and unusual. I'm pretty sure a lot of that comes out in my art, but lately I've been a a real 'imp' drawing kick.

I'm a tremendous fan of Wayne Barlowe and his guide to the inferno and related works, and I guess I've been putting my own weird whimsical spin on some of his ideas.

The last imp I drew quickly in a mere 20 minutes came out pretty lame, so I dug up an old pencil sketch from back in 2007 or so and colorized him a bit. Wasted maybe an hour and change on him. Didn't come out too bad. I was kind of thinking of what an Imp might eat, and for some reason all I could think of was that fire Imps would eat hot coals and embers, so here's one that got caught in the middle of a light snack.