Dry Erase Madness 5

Dry Erase Madness 4

Thing 2 is six years old. About a year ago he created what he calls "Heart Monsters." Basically they are flying, heart-shaped, and ravenous. I loved the idea and included three of them in my Erebor poster. But he does NOT approve of my rendering of them as above, because of the veins.

From the hands of the young master:

He would like you to know that they can get EVEN BIGGER than this, and are sometimes cannibalistic.

Dry Erase Madness 3

Dry Erase Madness 2

The oddest thing in the Indian Ocean is not the abundance of aquatic eggs, it's the unfortunate Monodontic Eel. It has but one tooth, eyestalks on the opposite end, and generally poor health.

Dry Erase Madness 1

FOR THE CHILDRENNNNNNN

Day 1

Props in Progress

Done so little for Halloween this year...working on just a few captured specimens for the Witch Hunter's Barn.

These will be mandrake roots. I'll post pix when they are finished.

A few more pinned fairies on the corkboard, awaiting paint.

Misty Mountains Old

The Dwarven Song of Old Wealth. All 27 verses. In the halls of Erebor (The Lonely Mountain). 37x60. Words and runic alphabet by J.R.R. Tolkien. Illustration by M.K. Davis.

I had more details in mind for this one but as is typical these days, it was gathering dust on the drawing table. And hanging off of the drawing table! At five feet long and over three feet wide, it's honking big. But it perfectly occupies the wall over my stairwell. I had to tape a screwdriver to a bamboo cane to mount it.

The Tolkien atlas illustrates a much simpler, much more shallow Erebor. But where's the fun in that? I wanted a cutaway dungeon version more fitting for "hollow halls beneath the fells" in "places deep where dark things creep."

No attempt was made at consistency of scale or of even being reasonable with it, but what you probably can't see in this pic are many ladders, bridges, elevators, and tunnels. By the time I got to Smaug's heap, the notion of chalices and statuary in silhouette just didn't make sense anymore. But should I change my mind, I can always go back to it.

BIG THANKS to Mike Roberts for getting my initial layout printed on that wonderful paper. Don't know what it is but I wish I had a ton of it. It made a gorgeous clean print and has taken a lot of abuse without wrinkling or tearing.