Gnatek

Yesterday I found out that Michael Gnatek died.

Gnatek was an amazing painter. A calm person, that made you feel calm just being around him. I posed for several of his paintings. It was fun, riding horses, waving around flags and guns. He was the first person I personally knew that made a living off of doing art, that wasn't just a gig on the side. Sure he made a lot of commercial images, but he was still painting and drawing for a living.

He also taught me amazing colored pencils techniques, that to this day, I still think of color in the same ways even when painting in photoshop.

I was looking forward to seeing him again and talking more about the business side of art, and showing him what I had been up to. I had tried to contact him earlier in the year, but I never heard back. He apparently was too sick. I didn't even know.

It was an honor to pose for him. You might not enjoy his subject matter, but there is no denying his skill.

The Washington Post has an interesting obituary up. Well worth the read Link


I have a color proof of one the paintings I posed for. It's interesting because he painted me with my then really long hair. The art director made him shorten it for the final print (didn't think it was appropriate). I'll scan and post it soon.



Patton at Bastogne by Michael Gnatek
I remember carrying this jacket, binoculars and holster in to his studio. He was a stickler for accuracy and detail. I also remember months later seeing this nearly finished large oil painting and being just utterly amazed. If you get a chance google some of his Native American drawings and paintings, that's were his passion and compassion is truly depicted.

I've officially moved across the river, this weekend.
Email me if you need my new address.

Bat Brew Beer Label Design

Sidhe

My portfolio is almost ready. I've set up a deal where if you pre-order the package, you can get a discount and I'll include a fifth antique page with an original hand drawn sketch of another of the Sidhe ( pronounced shee). Click the paypal button below to order. Release Date Nov 23.





Just a note, there is some very slight nudity. So if your very easily offended......

Oh and if you have a specific Ban Sidhe that you would like as the fifth sketch, just let me know in the Paypal comments box.

Be sure to pick up The Art of H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos

I'm proud to have my painting "The Thing from the Stars" to be featured with lots of great artists. I think this will be my first art that will be availble at bookshops. Can't wait to go back to Borders and see it in there.





Amazon Description:
This full-color volume collects the best art from Fantasy Flight's acclaimed Call of Cthulhu collectible card game, as well as from 25 years of Chaosium's legendary line of Call of Cthulhu role-playing game products. In these pages are glimpses of the most terrible beings ever to exist, whose very names are spoken of in whispers, if at all: Mighty Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth the Crawling Chaos Nyarlathotep and He Who Shall Not Be Named. Strange and alien races swarm here: the Fungi From Yuggoth, the star-headed Elder Things, the slithering Formless Spawn and awful chthonians. The Art of H.P. Lovecraft's The Cthulhu Mythos contains hundreds of full-color pieces of art, from fan favorites such as Patrick McEnvoy, Michael Komarck, Jean Tay, Thomas Denmark, John Gravato, Aaron Acevedo, James Ryman, Felicia Cano, Linda Bergkvist and dozens more. Once you see these blasphemous visions, you will never forget them.

Coming Soon

The Letter

Well my Aeon Flux piece got accepted to the Aeon Flux Official fanart gallery. Currently have the highest rating ...go vote for me, to keep me up there. ;) Just click below.

Well the class I'm teaching is posted on the internet....can't back out now.

http://www.vmfa.state.va.us/springclass2006descrip.html




[87] Fantastical Drawing
Paul Ballard
4 sessions, April 3 - 19
Mon & Wed, 4:30 - 6:30 pm
Center for Education & Outreach, Studio A
Grades 6 - 8
$80 (Museum members $70)
Enrollment limit: 12
Did you know Fantasy Art has roots in religion, mythology, and folklore from all over the world? VMFA gallery walks and drawing exercises explore the universal language of images that depict the mystery of life and forces unseen. Create your own version of reality through pencil, pen, ink, pastel and watercolor. A materials list is sent to those who enroll.

Boy, does that sound cheesy. But a cool Inka Essenhigh pic.

Archibald Knox (1864-1933) silver mirror for Liberty & Co. 1902

Call of Cthulhu Eldritch Edition is out now. I did a couple of cards for this set.


www.cthulhuccg.com

Beneath the burning sands an ancient evil lays dormant for untold millennia, biding its time - for when the stars are right, horrors not of this earth shall rule again... Eldritch Edition introduces the messenger of Azathoth himself, the Crawling Chaos Nyarlathotep. This dark god has a thousand forms, many of which are represented by individual cards in this new set. Eldritch Edition will also deepen the CCG play experience by introducing new cards and concepts for the game’s seven factions, opening up new possibilities for deckbuilding.

I'm lost in hedgerows at night, the further I go the more I get lost. Till eventually I'm in a dead end of thorns and briers. Even the way I came is grown over. The hedge comes alive and a majestic woman rises up, she just keeps rising until she stands above me nearly 8 feet tall. Her body made of twisting vines and thorns, alive fighting each other to reach to the moonlight.
Indignantly she looks down at me and says:
"I am the Queen of Thorns"
At that same moment the branches around her head snap to attention and quickly form a magnificent crown and then just as quickly unravel to continue their mission pushing upward.
"I have a sister who is made of glass, you will meet her soon."
Then in slow motion her long fingers reached down on my shoulder. I noticed little details,like bugs moving in between the vines that made up her arm.
"She will cut also, but be gentle"
As her hand touched my shoulder I could feel the thorns.


I awoke to my cat, clawing into my shoulder.

Ryan McGinness

75 days

Obi-Wan never told you

I don't know what's weirder, the fact that someone named a breed of Iris after Darth Vader, or the fact that I want to plant these around my apartment.

The Darth Vader Iris


There is also a Skywalker Orchid and a Darkside Iris, apparently flower breeders are big Star Wars fans, who would have guessed.

I've been a big fan of illustrator James Jean. Sometimes it's a little too obvious in my pictures, I need to tone it down a bit. Here's a two page spread he did for Best Life magazine, about a guy that was obsessed with Star Wars, no it wasn't about me.

We all see death before our eyes

Polish artist, Zdzislaw Beksinski found murdered.
Multiple stab wounds

"We all see death before our eyes," Beksinski said at a recent opening of his work

Odd Nerdum, Giger, and Beksinski are the only modern painters that when I first saw their work,I saw my nightmares. As if they had propped up an easel in my dreams, voyeuristic, surrealstic.

With my computer being down, I had been planning a return to oils. Just last week I was studying Beksinki's work. Owing a lot to Friedrich, Dhurmer, and Knopff yet being subtle and original.

Not many people know of Beksinki's work, so here is a mini gallery. I remember many of these dreams, perhaps you do too.

Click for larger version

RIP HAL 9000

Well my hard drive is dead. I bought him in 2001 and kept with a HAL desktop theme for years. I've lost so much stuff....Remember kids, backup files..blah.
Daisy...Daisy.


A really moving Muppet film, well worth checking out.
Click here


After a lawsuit about Ford misleading the public on the safety of SUV's, the settlement led to a campaign with cg and mechanical monster called esuvee...just odd.
http://esuvee.com



I can see future commercials in the series, with this nasty looking Muppet on steroids guzzling gas and then polluting the environment with it's emmissions.

and finally...

So my home computer is down again. I wonder how many times I've said that on this blog.

In the mean time, enjoy a still from yet another weird Japanese McDonalds commercial


And click here to see
Tim Burton's Corpse Bride Trailer.

Telemarketers get really confused when you try to sell them art

My version of engadget, retro style

1929 AEG Vampyr
Leave it to the Germans to come up with a vacuum cleaner called The Vampyr.
"I vant to suck your dirt".
Apparently a modern version of this model is still being made.

More cool pics at:
http://www.dhm.de/lemo/html/weimar/alltag/rationalisierung/

The weird thing about a blog is, you are never really sure how personal you want to be about it. To be truly interesting it should be personal, but do you really want to write about all your fears and doubts in so much detail that it lays there dissected on the table for anyone to see? It's a dilemma.
So when my grandfather died, I didn't feel comfortable writing about it, too personal and affected me in a way that was more difficult than I would imagine.
But then Kelly Freas and Will Eisner died and I felt the need to write about two people I really didn't know. It's safer. I'm just glad I knew my grandfather and can remember all the fun times I had. He will be missed.
Enough of that....
When I was young my parents would go to this little hole in the wall bookstore in Alexandria. They would spend forever there. To pass the time I would look at the old sci-fi paperbacks, studying the covers imagining the stories held within. So many of those covers were done by Kelly Freas. It's no stretch to say he was one who made me want to do illustration. He passed away the other day. He will be missed.



I came late to discovering Will Eisner. I missed The Spirit when it was popular. But when I was first starting college I discovered Comics and Sequential Art, the book Will Eisner wrote on the secrets of sequential narrative. It opened a whole new world to me on how to read comics. It led me to reading Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics and made me dream about making comics. He's the only person I can think of that has an award named after him that someday I want to win. He passed away the other day. He will be missed.

Life can be difficult.

No Christmas cards this year from me.
instead
A collection of Edward Gorey Chritmas cards.



Peace.

As some of you know, lately I have been riding a lot on my 1949 Schwinn. Often these early morning bicycle excursions are filled with things I would never see driving around Richmond. My new favourite sight is a white plastic bag that has been caught high up in the branches of a tree.
At first glance though it looks more like a wedding dress. And each day the tree bride's dress becomes more and more tattered. Their love weathering, birds making nests, winds and storms
Okay, not sure why I told you about that.

I've been reading the Lemony Snicket books lately. Each one gets better and better. Or should I say miserable and miserabler.
A weird compulsive order that I've developed is I have to create bookmarks for every book I read. Make that a disorder. Often books I have, don't get read because I don't feel like drawing up a bookmark. But Snicket is an exception and I've already created two bookmarks...I'll need to stop myself before I create all eleven.
Here is the first one....Count Olaf from the Reptile Room.



And yes it is a lot like my myspace picture, last post.

A little housekeeping, (A little boring)
First off, I've been having trouble with modems, email etc.
My former email of nekokaiju23@aol.com is no longer valid, so please contact me at the gmail address up above.
Also for some reason paul@nekokaiju.com email is currently down so please email me again at nekokaiju@gmail.com if you have emailed recently...Blah.

I forgot to mention this when it came out, but the Fantasy Flight booster packs for the Call of Cthulhu game shipped in November. So if you feel like owning a piece of my art in card form, then pick up a pack of Unspeakable Tales from your local games shop. Maybe you'll get lucky and get one of my images. I'll have some scans up soon. I have heard that some people collect cards with the artist's signature on it, so just email me about it and I'll give you the details on signing cards. (yes email me at nekokaiju@gmail.com also.)

Been pretty busy lately. I did some coupon designs for the museum and am working on some coat of arms projects.

Here is a little photo manipulation I did for my myspace entry,

And here is a Greek/ Victorian commission I did. Yes very Alma Tadema, Goodward inspired.


So Godzilla turns 50 this year,I really should have mentioned this before on the blog. Hmmm, maybe I did.
Anyway just the other day the big green guy got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, joining the alumni of Gipsy Rose Lee, Mickey Mouse, Fay Ray, Boris Karloff, Michael Jackson and Claudette Colbert. I real high point for Kaiju everywhere.

But at the same time Godzilla has hit one of his lowest points in his career. Just the other day I saw a commercial of him hawking Immodium D. Oh how far the mighty have fallen, from titantic battling of the Smog monster to fighting the mundane battles of loose stool.

So hopefully the old saying, "If you see Doug Wilder walking down the street while you are drinking coffee then you are destined for happiness" is true.

A day late...
Modem problems

Today was a bad day.
I didn't realize the museum could be so taxing. A mailing had gone out late, so many people called just to complain, and me being on the frontline of the art wars, got to be yelled at repeatedly by customers, and all I could do was say I was sorry for something I didn't have a thing to do with...fun.
And bill collectors calling me up, reminding me that I owe them money. Like I could forget. I've tried to forget, but that doesn't work. So that in mind I think they call just to make you feel bad. "You owe us money and you don't have it, loser"
Just not necessary.

Japanese McDonalds commercial (just click)


Terryl Whitlatch, Star Wars artist has a new project, The Katurran Odyssey.
Can't go wrong with ring tailed lemurs. (again, just click)


And because I feel like it, more Julie Newmar (sorry nothing to click for her)

No more leafblowers!

More Star Wars Marketing madness coming next year



Gigantor live action teaser trailer

So Spectrum 11 is out. Here is a step by step look at the making of the cover
Is this the kind of step by step thing you would like to see on this journal?

Personal goal of mine to be included in Spectrum 12 next Nov. Wish me luck.



And because I sympathize in the hatred of leaf blowers, the fabulous, Julie Newmar


I'm a little surprised I didn't get any comments about my Fett animated thingy..hmm.

Just a quick little experiment




Animated test, might take a second or two to load.


Comments?

A Good Day

One of the benefits of renting is it forces you to go to the local laundromat. A coin operated nirvana of entertainment. My particular laundromat is decorated with beach scene wallpaper, so you can drift away in your imagination to the outer banks with the background hum of washing machines and the sounds of the Samurai Showdown arcade game (Blood curdling screams and Japanese music).

All the machines are Speed Queens, I like to think of them as the royalty of washing machines as opposed to really fast crossdressers.

So I am surrounded by female monarchy, but the true Queen of the automatons is the Bride of Pin-Bot pinball machine. She beckons with a digitzed voice calling out to give her life. The machine is an incredibly sexist creation, Your goal to shoot your ball into her mouth to give her speech and then into her eyes to give her sight. The graphics consisting of a rocket between her mechanical thighs. All the while she laughs or encourages you. This particular machine is worn from years of use and machine love.

So that is the place I was going to this morning. As I walk across the street a car pulls up on the sidewalk. An old man gets out and as I watch what he's doing, half his car blocking the walkway, he gives me a dirty look and walks away. An amazing parking job and I get the dirty look. I go in and and precede to load my clothes. On the radio is the elusive Richmond 80's radio station. The one I can't pick up in my car but the laundromat picks up perfectly. Eye of the Tiger comes on and the Bride of PinBot calls. Amazingly on one play I get the high score and on 50 cents I play until my clothes need to go in the dryer. A high score and I hear safety dance, it's amazing the small things that make you happy.

So the new trailer is out.
Yes the trailer for Dawn of War Another fine short by those folks at Blur Studios (If you haven't already, download the Rockfish video a few posts back)This time it's the game intro to a Warhammer 40K game. Generally my experience with Warhammer is the annoying Games Workshop employees jumping on you as soon as you enter the store. It's like some cult of red shirted fantasy players. But this video will sell you on 40K more than any of those devotees. The animated Dreadnought will make you want to form an army and go out and get those orcs. A great short.

Of course another trailer came out yesterday...Yeah that one.
Here is a sticker giveaway I designed for those wacky Atlanta Star Wars fans.


And mmmm, Lava Berry Explosion Pop-Tarts

Never trust a Kitty over 30

Art Spiegelman, creator of Maus: "Everything I know I learned from comic books, and I wasn't surprised that aliens had taken over our government..."


Goths for Bush

And for equal time:

Satanist for Kerry

And if you are tired of politics check out this slideshow of , Hello Kitty's Birthday