Some people have asked how to make the little models I do for my book series. Well today I have a fun little craft you can do at home to make your very own paper mausoleum!

All you need is a printer, some scissors and tape (or white glue if you want to be super neat about it), some popsicle sticks or thin balsa wood, and about twenty minutes of free time!

Click the cut-link below for the printer images (they are very big, so they may load slowly!) Print them at exactly the size shown, and note that there's a number for how many you print of each. So X4 means print four copies of a piece.

( Paper Pieces )


Cut out the pieces, following the red lines, then assemble as follows:


For each tower base, fold along the dotted lines into a rectangular box, then tape the edges together (you can also use white glue if you don't like the way the tape looks).






Cut four 5" long balsa wood pieces (or use popsicle sticks) for each tower, and glue them along the inside corners of each tower, so that exactly 3 inches of wood is sticking up from inside the tower. Make sure they're even, or the tower caps won't sit correctly on them!





While the glue dries, cut out your tower cap pieces (4 pieces) and fold along the dotted lines, until they form little triangular cone caps for your towers. Tape or glue the ends together. Cut out a little square of scrap paper that's a little bit bigger than the base of your tower cap and glue or tape the tower cap to the top of it. Repeat for the other three tower caps.




When your tower base sticks are dry, you can glue your tower caps right to the top of them.

Finally, cut out the front arch piece for your mausoleum and glue a small length of stick to the back of it, to make it stand upright. Tape or glue the sides of the arch to the two front towers.

And you're all done with your very own Paperleum!

I haven't been able to update my wockets in a while, because my website wasn't working, and without a way to upload pictures, it just isn't a wocket!

But now I'm able to post pics again, so I wanted to share some collections of mine!

I love collecting weird things. I think it's because I'm such a pack rat anyway, but I just love collecting strange stuff.



Collection 1: Hotel Bibles



Since I travel a lot for my job and stay in a lot of hotels, I have time to work on my Gideon bible collection. I take one of those little bibles from every hotel room I stay in. It's a fun way to remember my trips and it gives the Gideons something to do (namely, print more bibles and put them back in the room).

To date, I have over 50 hotel bibles and ten books of Mormon. Eventually I'm going to get a bookcase big enough to hold them all at once.



Collection 2: Metal Things



When I walk around town or in the city, I notice a lot of weird stuff on the ground. Most of it you probably don't want to touch cuz of germs, but the things I do collect from the ground are weird metal things. One day, I was out walking and found some kind of L-shaped solid metal doohickey, and I couldn't for the LIFE of me figure out the purpose of it. I took it home and put it in an old tea jar, and from that day on, I've collected bizarre metal things from the ground. My only requirement is that they be things I can't immediately identify or figure out a use for.

NOTE: If you take up this hobby, be sure to carry a handkerchief for picking the things up, or you might get tetanus!



Collection 3: Gold Mirrors



I LOVE mirrors, and I love decorating my house, so this hobby just writes itself! I have a bunch of gold-painted mirrors around my house, and whenever I can, I like to surf Craigslist or check out local flea markets to find more!



I hope these wockollections have inspired you to start your own weird collection!

When science occurs, things get broken. Take for example this metal drink thermos that I use to hold cold water in. Science tells me it's a great way to get my tap water really cold without messing about with ice cubes...when placed in the freezer, the thin metal shell of the bottle will become very cold and chill the water within the thermos almost ten times as fast as a plastic bottle will. I can fill this thermos up with tap water, place it in the fridge and have ice cold water fifteen minutes later, all thanks to science.

But what science giveth, science taketh away. If you accidentally fill the thermos up all the way and forget it in the fridge, the water turns to ice. The ice expands and the metal shell, unlike plastic, cannot expand along with it. Resulting in a rupture.




But as always, science can provide comfort in the face of structural tragedy. In this case, it provided a neatly-formed pillar of ice. And with the help of a pocket flashlight, it became art.

( Click for pictures (large pics, may load slowly! )

I can NOT believe I didn't think of this before. I seriously want to slap a)myself and b)everyone else, because it took me like five YEARS to come up with this idea for how to make the centaur work. THIS TIME IT'S GOING TO WORK! It was so obvious, why the hell didn't I see it? I was driving from CT to PA last night and it all of a sudden struck me. I was so surprised I drove right past my exit and didn't notice for like ten miles.

SUPER CENTAUR PWNAGE!!!

It's been quite a while since I posted a new wocket for y'all, but here's a neat one! I made a reference model for a set in Bizenghast 5:




This is the set of the chapter called Megiddo, and it took me three days to make. The piece is made from like a billion sticks of balsa wood and dowel. I collected the sticks and rocks outside my house. The ground cover is craft reindeer moss, which I chose for its resemblance to bonzai trees.

I started by securing the branches into a two-inch thick piece of styrofoam, then cutting the bases for the platforms out of cardboard:




I covered the cardboard in balsa planking and started to build up the structures from there:




I gathered some small rocks from outside and made a little hanging rock garden at the side of the model, then dusted it with model snow to make it look like a groundfrost.




I also scattered some larger rocks about on the ground:





And I added a little gravestone to make it look cool :)




I used some wide ribbon that's red on the outside and gold on the inside to create little fabric screens on the inside of the main building, which I nicknamed the Temple:




The roof of the Temple was tricky to make...I knew how I wanted it to look but wasn't sure how to shape it. Finally I came up with a paper and balsa base that worked really well:



I tiled the roof with sequins, one by one, attaching them with white glue. I then painted the roof with metallic bronze paint, then coated it with a chemical that reacts with the metal paint and creates a patina (a greenish rust). I then sprinkled snow on the roof to make it look aged.


I also made a little bridge going between the Temple and one of the smaller platforms, as well as a ladder going down to the ground:




The lanterns I made from transluscent red paper and wooden braces, then wired them with small chandelier lights and copper wiring, hooked up to a 4-D battery pack. They light up with a reddish glow to give the set a cool atmosphere.






Finally I gave the whole set a coat of wood stain to age the balsa and make it look like a much older, darker wood.

I had a lot of fun making this model, even it took long hours to make. I kinda got in the zone on this one and just kept at it until it was done. And it'll definitely help me with book 5! Awesome!

I always strive to finish something once I've started it, but I'm sad to say that I often don't...not because I give up on a concept, but because once I've thought of it and proved it can be made, I totally lose interest in it.

Leonardo Da Vinci had a very good quote to this effect: "To conceive is inspired...to complete is servile." I think I share his notion on this. As soon as I know something can be done, or drawn, or built, or created, I rarely feel like finishing it, because I'm only really interested in the idea.

This is the main reason my dumb centaur wocket has yet to be completed. And it's the reason a LOT of art never gets finished.

The question is this: is not completing art irresponsible, or just the result of a curious nature?

Haven't had a new wocket to talk about recently, other than doing some tedious beading on a dress. But now since I got a Madame Alexander Oz doll from McDonald's in a Happy Meal, I'm determined to collect them all. And give them makeovers.




Each took around 45 minutes to do, on average. They're pretty fun, but the Tin Man was the toughest one to figure out. I'd like to get all the rest but I have to save my money, so anyone who wants to donate a spare toy that's not pictured here, go for it!

I've been doing little comic strips on scraps of paper in my spare time...they're kind of nonsensical, but I hate to waste any piece of paper, no matter how small!

This is a sculpey model I made about 4 years ago and then did...something with it. No idea where it went, I think I gave it to someone. But I found these pics on my hard drive and was like, "Woah, when did I make this?"





I made this in about two hours from stuff I had lying around in my dorm room...sculpey, feathers, artifical flowers, bits of lace, acrylic paint and glue. I like to make things out of scraps I have, because it gets rid of all the tiny little bits of things I have that I don't want to throw away.

The way I put this doll together was different from how I usually do it. Most times, I make the entire thing out of one solid piece. But in this case I made each limb and the torso separately and then glued them together, using the decorations to hide the seams.

When sculpey has been worked with and handled a lot, it gets very very soft. To keep them stiff after I've made the limbs and they're waiting to be fired, I put them in the freezer. That way, when I'm assembling the doll and comparing the proportions, I won't be bending or drooping the limbs out of shape.

This doll is one of the few freestanding dolls I've made, in that it's actually standing, not sitting. It's also up on one leg. I drove a peg through its lowered foot into the base and then secured it with a puddle of glue that looks like ice. :)

Also here are some models called LollyBits that I make and sell sometimes. These are all the ones I made and sold for commissions.



I like making models. I hope I get another chance soon to make one!

Sketch of my version of Fantasia centaur for my costume:



Kind of a combination of two different centaurs from the movie. Course, it will look much more articulated than this, but yeah. Totally.

Update on the centaur: some changes to my latest, latest, LATEST design. Instead of stretch suede to simulate horseskin, I'm going with a latex skin that's then sprayed with a high-quality flocking. This will give it more of a fuzzy My-Little-Pony finish, but will eliminate sagging and stretchy skin around the joints. :)

Of all my various wockets and wocket-related dealings, no wocket has so completely eluded me as the Undead Wocket that is my mechanical centaur.

What started as a crazy "wouldn't this be a riot to build?" project quickly became a neverending engineering battle which, no matter how many times I've scrapped it and refused to deal with it any further, has nevertheless dragged itself back from the grave over and over for the last FIVE YEARS. It's like the reanimated corpse of a project you keep throwing away...it just keeps coming back, bent on eating your brain.

Literally hundreds of hours logged on the computer searching for similar projects, close to a thousand hours wasted on multiple prototypes, and a crash-and-burn attempt to finish and transport the real thing two years ago to San Diego Comicon has culminated in a mountain of endless frustration for me. Because if there's one thing I really can't stand, it's giving up on a project.

I want to make it clear that I'm not making an ordinary centaur costume...like one with wheels on the back feet or something. I'm trying to making one that walks LIKE a real horse when I wear it. This is harder than it sounds. I've been through motors, cables, even marionette wire to get this to happen. I'm so close on my latest design, I just have to reinforce the whole internal structure in order to have it function properly.

Because if you do a lame non-walking centaur, you get some little kid's Halloween costume like this:



And if you do a walking one, you get something more like this:



Which unfortunately was made for the Athens Olympics and on the inside, looks like this:



which I lifted from the directory on the creators' studio site and of course there's no way of telling how they made it exactly cuz they ain't telling.

This is seriously driving me nuts.

This costume has burned through dozens of sketchbooks, countless dollars in supplies, thirty-three separate designs and the patience of five roommates and two parental units. I'm pretty sure if you graphed the daily activity of my brain, it would look something like this:



The point is I've put way too much thought into this project to just give up, especially since I was SUPER CLOSE the SDCC before last. I have a feeling THIS year is my year to finally make this stupid thing happen.

Mechanics aside, I've given the outer shell of the costume some serious thought as well. In addition to actually WORKING, it has to look good, because a technical success is still not a total success. It's harder than it seems...for instance, what material best mimics horsehide while still allowing the mechanics underneath to move? (Turns out it's stretch suede, which they actually make for some ungodly reason.) Should I go for a My Little Pony spoof or a faithful Chronicles of Narnia movie-version rendition? These are the incredibly nerdy dilemmas that keep me up at night, and I don't even like centaurs all that much.

My latest decision is to do one of the centaurs from the original Disney Fantasia, in the Pastoral Symphony segment. This one, specifically:








And thus my ongoing struggle with mechanical-centaurosity continues.

I'm in the zappy-pow ZONE tonight. Check out this preview, the first image from book 4 of Bizenghast.

My friend G-chan and I are dainty princesses. And I have the art to prove it. :)



I made this for G's desk at her work. Her fave princess is Aurora and her fave color is green. Mine are Cinderella and pink, obviously. Hence the dresses!

Can't...stop...playing...Myst...URU....

The bendyguy reference turned into the final page illustration :)

I was working on environment sketches for book 4 of Bizenghast this week...here are two of my favorite ones. The first is fully inked because I had time while waiting for my friend at the doctor's office, but the second has yet to be finished.

It's no secret...I am fanatically devoted to the Myst games. Not only are they a major influence on my art, but they're wicked fun to play. I bring this up because not too long ago, I got a new laptop and had to immediately exchange it for a different one, because the first one had a blown pixel in the screen. Unfortunately I left the first disc of my End of Ages Myst game in the drive when I returned it, whoops! So now I can't play End of Ages anymore, which blows because I was halfway through it! I'm hoping to borrow a friend's disc and copy it, and also borrow a copy of the complete Uru saga (which includes Path of the Shell and To D'Ni expansion packs). Anything to get my Myst on.

The Myst franchise has turned out some of the most spectacular art I've ever seen...mostly because characters are virtually nonexistent in the games, which means the focus is mainly on the environments, and you know I love that! No magical +3 swords, no shiny armor and elf-women warriors in chainmail bikinis to render in the game...just screen after screen of awesome scenery. Also I love love LOVE solving puzzles, which is largely why I was stuck on the same puzzle in Ages for over a month...I just didn't want to go online and get a hint to solve it! Hopefully I can borrow the first disc soon and finally SOLVE that stupid puzzle. It haunts me.

Another thing I love about Myst are the crazy inventions and infrastructure of the worlds within...I've said before I love inventions and mechanical drawings, but I REALLY REALLY love these things, which is yet another reason why I adore Myst games. I don't get enough opportunities in my current series to include and explore some of my nutty invention drawings :( I actually DO have sketchbooks full of mechanical doodads and inventions that were intended to go into the Bizenghast books...some of them made it in, but with a minimal amount of space to explain how they work, they were simply glossed over or explanations were emitted altogether. For example, there's a gigantic machine in the ground under the mausoleum that extracts, bottles and contains human souls before dispensing them into their own personal vaults...this machine is AWESOME, yet with the limited amount of space in the series, never gets shown or described. I have to make decisions every day about mechanics versus plot...one gets sacrificed for the sake of the other. And considering the lack of machines in Bizenghast, you can guess which one usually wins the debate in the end. If I had like ten more volumes, I'd be able to include all the gadgetry and stuff I want to show, but I don't. My colleagues tease me sometimes about how I have a fixation on really boring, technical things, like mechanics or historically accurate stuff (which is why I'll never get to do my awesome Sherlock Holmes manga)...these things don't appeal to the common reader. So I love to look at the concept drawings of Myst inventions and machines from time to time, just for fun.

If you've never seen the concept art for the Myst games, you really should do a quick search for it online. Below is one of my favorite pieces of conceptual art from Revelations. This is the kind of art to which I aspire...someday I want to be able to do these kinds of backgrounds and scenes in my own books.



I've been working overtime in developing new environments for book 4 of Bizenghast that more closely match what I want to do with my art, which means they take an enormous amount of time and 250% more effort than before. It's not only a question of having a good imagination, but also of painstakingly mapping each scene so that when I put the characters in and arrange various camera angles for each panel, the characters can move about in a realistic fashion and I'll have reference for every square inch of the scenery. This also means taking my level of art up several billion notches in order to pull it off, which in turn means long nights studying anatomy books and technical drawing manuals. I don't just sit around watching cartoons in order to do my job (although that happens too). Every day I actively try to learn one new technique and then practice it in my sketches.

The result of this is that any work I've done that's over two weeks old seems obsolete and terrible to me XD Which is why I'm constantly putting down all previous volumes of Bizenghast. I can't even LOOK at book 1 without cringing, it's just so bad and hastily done. But maybe that's how the makers of Myst feel when they look at the first game...they see it as simplistic and blocky and don't really like it. Personally I love all the Myst games...thus the title for this journal entry.

I think it's important to feel that all my previous works are crap, because it means I'm improving. If I ever look at a former volume and feel that it's just fine the way it is, I'll know I'm not doing my job. :)

When I have to draw a difficult face or gesture, the best way to do it is to take a picture of my own hand or expression and use it as reference. But when I can't use myself as a model, I use my friends and family a lot as stand-ins...my friend G-chan has put in a lot of shifts as Dinah and various guy friends have been Vincent. They come over and I tell them how to pose, based on my thumbnail sketches, then use my digicam to capture the pose and immediately upload it to my laptop to be manipulated into what I need.

But sometimes my friends aren't available or a pose needs to be referenced in conjunction with an object or background that I don't have, and I turn to modelmaking. My old professor Paul Hudson, at my alma mater SCAD, turned me onto modelmaking in his amazing classes. He's some kind of a model building genius...he once built a tiny working trebuchet out of wood as reference for a comic...and he taught me everything I know about modelmaking.

So here's a step-by-step guide to the inner machinations of my modelmaking wocketry, using a helpful little dude I like to call Mr. BendyGuy.

Here's the setup: Vincent is asleep at his desk, which is a high old-fashioned desk with a top shelf and a lower desk surface. The angle is from above left. Here's the thumbnail sketch of that page:



First off, I have to build a little bendy dude to pose in Vincent's place. I make lots of bendy guys to stand in for characters, using wire from the hardware store, craft yarn and some sculpey clay for a head.



First I model a wire body that's exceedingly simple...just a wire skeleton knotted together, using a wire cutter to help bend the pieces. Then I wrap a length of yarn around each part of the doll, starting at the foot and wrapping each limb tightly.



When I'm done I tie off the yarn and I have a solid body shape. The yarn is put on to flesh out the bendyguy a bit and make him more proportional to the character.




Then I get a little ball of sculpey clay and make a little face on it. It's very very basic and takes only about 30 seconds...just a chin and a nose and small hollows for the eyes.




I poke the head right onto the neck and the guy is done! Now he can be articulated and bent at any joint and at the neck. Here he is sitting at a small doll's vanity table in roughly the correct position for the page sketch:




In this position, I can go in and get extreme angles with the camera that otherwise might be tough to draw without a model:




So now I have my little Mr. Bendissimo. However this vanity table is not even close to the kind of table he should be sitting at, so I need to make one. With the help of an old toothpaste box and some artist's tape, I can throw together a desk roughly the same size and style as the one in the sketch, all in about 5 minutes.




And I can get the right camera angle for the sketch, and even try out some different angles that might be better:











All of this prep took less than 30 minutes and saved me a big headache on drawing this page (I'll have the finished page up for comparison later this week). Plus I have a new bendy guy and table to play with in future scenes! I have a whole box of little doll props, stand-ins and toys for use in reference setups...they're very helpful and an easy solution for setups if your friends are busy and you can't afford to buy new human-sized furniture every time you want to reference something. :3

Also can I just reiterate how much I LOVE to draw my little inventions? It bugs me that I don't get more opportunities in my books to draw my little machines and doodads...my next comic book series will definitely have to be more mechanically-oriented XD

today on marTV: Extreme Engineering, Mythbusters, How It's Made

Before I do each graphic novel, I make up what are called thumbnails...little sketches of what each page of the book will look like. This helps me plan out what information each page contains, and also lets me look at all the pages at once so I can spot similar panel layouts that occur too many times in the same chapter, etc. It's vital to have a game plan instead of just jumping into a book. Some artists do thumbnails that are about the size of your hand...others do ones that are four to a page. I've never met any other artist who draws their thumbnails as small as I do...I can fit 25 thumbnails per sheet of paper, for I am crazy for really really tiny things. I do approximately 200 of these thumbnails before I can start a book, and here is what a sheet of them looks like:



I do so love to draw tiny!






Today's marTV: Spongebob, How it's Made, Jimmy Neutron.